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Features

Interview with Clyde Sukeforth
by Mike Shatzkin (September 19, 1993)

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[Who were some ballplayers you worked with up the ladder?]

CLYDE SUKEFORTH: Oh, yeah. I had George Cisar that first year in the Carolina League. George finally got to the big leagues.

[I don't know him.]

He didn't have much of a career. He should have had, too. He could run like a gale and he had a good arm. But the minor leagues were tough in those days. The major league clubs would sponsor them, five or six minor league clubs. Some of them didn't hardly have any. With all these clubs, and all the scouting that the major league clubs had taken over, it leads to many more ballplayers filling the same number of jobs. There are not the number of jobs that there are now.

[In the major leagues?]

In the minors. Most major league clubs would have a Triple A and maybe a Double A, and some of them didn't even have that many.

[How many clubs had Class D when you started managing?]

Well, the Cardinals had broken the ice. The Cardinals had shown the way. This was one of [Branch] Rickey's accomplishments. And they all, I think, even the Red Sox now, I think they have five or six farm clubs. I think the trend is that way more so now than in the past.

[Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis discouraged farm systems. He turned players loose]

He took a dim view of that. He released a bunch of Rickey's Cardinals, including Pete Reiser. Reiser was in a big bunch that Landis made free agents. Young Branch was running the Brooklyn farm system [before Old Branch came over], and of course, he knew all about Reiser, and I don't know how many of those boys they picked up. I know they picked up Reiser and one other boy.

[Didn't Pee Wee Reese get released from the Red Sox the same way?]

I don't think he ever signed with them. The Red Sox were hardly [highly?] interested in him.
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