New Ulm HALL OF FAME Member

Clarence (Lefty) Light

Pitcher

Selected 2000

Birthdate: April 29, 1920

Lifetime Baseball Batting Stats Page

Lifetime Baseball Pitching Stats Page

            Lefty Light was hardly ever known by his given first name, yet Clarence was an outstanding pitcher for the New Ulm Brewers in 1941, when Lefty was hired after pitching for Gustavus Adolphus, where he played with the Spelbrink bothers.

            Light, who later prefaced his name with a nickname of "Red," pitched and won two state tournament games as the Brewers won the 1941 state amateur championships. He considers winning the championship as his greatest New Ulm memory.  In the playoffs that year, he struck out 14 to beat Springfield and also got the win on the following day with six innings of relief pitching at Buffalo Lake.

            In a 1941 state tournament semifinal game against a strong Chaska team, Light struck out 12 batters.

            Strikeouts were his forte. In 1940 he struck out 10 or more in seven of the 10 games in which he pitched. In 1940 he had 20 strikeouts in a four-hit shutout against Fairmont, and he also struck out 20 the following year against Olivia. In his freshman year at Gustavus Adolphus, he pitched the final game against St. John's to enable the Gusties to win the state college championship.

            Light feels one of the better games he ever pitched came in 1939, when he was pitching for Faribault of the Southern Minnesota League in a game against Austin.  He lost 1-0 when the shortstop threw the ball over the first baseman's head.

            Light pitched for seven different teams in Minnesota and two others in Texas, and he has special memories from 1944, when he was playing with the Corpus Christi, Texas Naval Air Station team. That team had six or seven major league players and finished with a record of 33-2.  He pitched in about five games and beat Pensacola, a team which had Ted Williams among other major leagues.

            In high school, Light pitched two back-to-back no-hit games for Watertown High School.

            Clarence lives in Houston, Texas, where he noted his 87th birthday on April 29. He attended Johnson Park's 50th anniversary celebration in 1989.