Rough and Tumble

When a baseball league has been around for more than a century, you know it’s got some stories to tell. That’s certainly the case for the Texas League, whose teams have been taking the field since 1888, longer than any other pro league in the state.

Consider the game in 1902 when Jay Clarke, the catcher for the Corsicana Oilers, hit eight home runs in one outing against the Texarkana Casket Makers. Clarke’s feat remains unmatched in professional baseball. With 21 home runs as a team, the Oilers won the game 51-3.

“There’s a backstory to this,” explains Tom Kayser, president of the Texas League from 1992 to 2017. “Texarkana’s team owner asked the manager if he’d do him a favor by allowing his rookie son to pitch. The manager