if you were to consult baseball reference, as i have done, and looked at all the players who have suited up for the bridegrooms/grooms/bridegrooms/superbas/dodgers/superbas/robins/dodgers franchise, you might notice that watty clark was a pitcher for the dodgers over the course of 11 seasons - from 1927-1937. that is true. however, what that list doesn't tell you is that clark spent about a year with the new york giants during that span. yes, he was a dodger double dipper.
here's clark's 1990 target card
when i looked at that list to help me figure out who double dipped, i would look for inconsistencies between the 'years' column and the 'from' and 'to' column. for example, double dipper dave anderson played for the dodgers for 8 years, from 1983-1992. that's 10 seasons, so i knew (aside from my memory of the bad dodger 1992 team) that there was some double dipping going on. it got a bit tricky with the players who served in the military during world war ii, but i felt pretty confident that i had identified all of the double dippers. then along came watty clark, whose time away from the franchise spanned about 12 months, but not a complete season.clark debuted with the robins in 1927, having previously pitched in the majors for the indians in 1924. as a dodger, he led the league in losses with 19 in 1929, but he also won 20 games in 1932. overall, clark amassed a record of 84-69 before he was traded to the giants during the 1933 season.
as a giant, clark was 3-4 over the course of the remainder of the 1933 campaign (he did not pitch in the world series in which the giants were victorious), and then had a 1-2 record for bill terry's team in 1934 when the dodgers re-acquired him, almost exactly a year after they had traded clark away. back with brooklyn, clark was 2-0 in 17 games to finish out the 1934 season. he pitched for the dodgers into the 1937 season, and finished with a lifetime record of 111-97.
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