Fred Clifford Clarke (October 3, 1872 – August 14, 1960) was a Major League Baseball player from 1894 to 1915 and manager from 1897 to 1915. A Hall of Famer, Clarke played for and managed both the Louisville Colonels and Pittsburgh Pirates. He was a left fielder and left-handed batter.

Of the nine pennants in Pittsburgh franchise history, Clarke was the player-manager for four of them. He and fellow Hall of Famers Honus Wagner and Vic Willis led Pittsburgh to a victory over Ty Cobb and the Detroit Tigers in the 1909 World Series. Clarke batted over .300 in 11 different seasons. His 35-game hitting streak in 1895 was the second-longest in Major League history at the time and is still tied for 11th-longest. For six years, Clarke held the Major League record for wins by a manager.

Fred Clarke was born on a farm near Winterset, Iowa. At age two, his family moved as part of a covered wagon caravan from Iowa to Kansas before relocating to Des Moines, Iowa, five years later. As a child in Des Moines, Clarke sold newspapers for the Iowa State Register where his boss was future Baseball Hall of Fame member, Ed Barrow. In 1892, a professional team in Hastings, Nebraska sent a railroad ticket to Des Moines semiprofessional player, Byron McKibbon, but McKibbon backed out and gave the ticket to Clarke instead. Clarke impressed the Hastings team and he signed his first professional contract. He was in the Southern League at age 21 and played for teams in Montgomery, Alabama, and Savannah, Georgia.

...
Wikipedia