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Submitted: 7/27/09 • Approved: 10/25/23 • Last Updated: 10/28/23 • R216477-G216477-S3
Major League Baseball Player
HENRY CLYDE DAY
August 25, 1899 - March 21, 1934
Henry Clyde Day was born in Pea Ridge, AR., the son of James and Elizabeth Day. He was nicknamed "Pea Ridge" as a young man and it stuck with him. He was a champion Arkansas hog-caller and right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball. He would bat left handed and pitch right handed. Standing six foot tall and weighting 190 lb. he was a compact ball of fire. "Pea Ridge" Day pitched the better part of four seasons, compiling a 5-7 record in more than 122 major-league innings with the Cardinals, Reds and Dodgers from Sept. 19, 1924 playing for the St. Louis Cardinals, to Sept. 21, 1931 playing for the Brooklyn Robins. He was known for his antics on the field, one of which was making “hog calls” to opposing batters. It was reported he stopped this practice in 1931, when during an exhibition game between the Brooklyn Robins (now the Los Angeles Dodgers) and the New York Yankees, he had struck out 2 batters and had an 0 –2 count on Babe Ruth, when Babe belted a homerun out of the park. Unsuccessful in returning to baseball after undergoing surgery on his arm, he took his own life by slitting his throat with a hunting knife in Kansas City, MO. He is buried in the Pea Ridge Cemetery, Pea Ridge, Benton Co. AR., along with his wife, Lois.
References Consulted:
Obits
http://www.thedeadballera.com/Obits/Obits_D/Day.Clyde.Obit.html
Missouri Death Certificate
http://sos.mo.gov/TIF2PDFConsumer/DispPDF.aspx?fTiff=/archives/DeptofHealth/Death/1934/1934_00009643.TIF&Fln=774422.pdf
http://www.3-2pitch.com/players/3374_pea-ridge_day.php5
http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=day---001cly
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/All-time+Arkansas+born%2Fraised+team.-a0201801199
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pea_Ridge_Day
*Obituary
Newspaper Unknown
March 21, 1934
LOSS Of ARM BEHIND DAY TRAGEDY
Costly Operation Had Failed to Restore
Pea Ridge's Whip to Form.
PEA RIDGE, Ark. — Grief over a pitching arm that lost its thunder caused Clyde Day's suicide at Kansas City last week.
Members of his family hold to that version of Clyde's actions when he slit his throat with a hunting knife, an act which puzzled much of the baseball world which knew him — for all his eccentricities — as a care-free, fun-loving figure who gave the game one of its most widely-known characters.
But the powerful right arm of the solidly-built Pea Ridge—a name he carried through ten years of baseball since his professional debut with Joplin in the fall of 1921—was shot, and the hurler, more than anyone else, knew it, and brooded almost continually over the fact.
Pea Ridge saw fame, glory and fortune that he once knew fading away. Last spring he tried to catch on at Little Rock, Ark., and they sent him to Minneapolis. There he was released. Day did what he thought was the last thing left for him to do. He went to Rochester, Minn., and underwent a delicate and expensive operation on his arm, which he thought would restore to it the old snap and endurance it once knew. Day told members of his family he had spent almost $10.000 on the arm; and when he returned, crest-fallen, to his home, he said the operation did no good. He knew the arm was gone, but he wanted to carry on.
A domestic quarrel the Sunday he left home resulted in his going to Kansas City. A likable personality as a rule, Pea Ridge went in the opposite direction when drinking.
Day's life had been a series of family shocks. In 1922, when he was on the receiving end of a Day-and-Day battery, and a brother, Lemmie (those in Northwest Arkansas who know their baseball say Lemmie was a greater pitcher than Clyde turned out to be), was in the box, came the first shock. Lemmie went down with blond poisoning and his right leg was amputated in a vain effort to save his life. His mother took her life by drinking poison in 1929, and his father dropped dead of a heart attack in 1932. Clyde put in much of his spare time hunting and fishing. He fashioned bows and arrows and became an expert in their use. He could spear fish and kill squirrels and other small animals with these arrows.
A few months ago he told close friends he was to be a father. Married for eleven years, Clyde acted like a small boy about to receive a new toy, over the new arrival.
On the day of his funeral, on the afternoon of March 23, with more than 500 friends turning out—more than the newly erected Pea Ridge Baptist Church could hold—the Day house was strewn with toys purchased for his son, five weeks old. Those gifts reflected Clyde's life: A small baseball, a tiny bat and a baby-sized mask for the youngster named John Charles.
PORTER WITTICH.
Lois
May 25, 1903 - June 16, 1989
Contributed on 7/27/09 by wfields55
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Record #: 216477