Play ball
A piece of Cornell’s baseball history recently returned home, thanks to the daughter of a first baseman who captained the varsity team nearly a century ago.
The uniform that once belonged to Leslie Clute, Class of 1913, now resides in the library’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections. Martha Clute, Leslie’s daughter, donated the uniform through Alan Detrick, who works for Cornell Dining and was helping the Clute family at an estate sale.
The donation included a complete outfit: scratchy wool shirt and pants, cleats, mitt, belt and cap. Detrick noted that the uniform was “in incredible shape.”
Clute captained the varsity team during his junior and senior years, playing on the team as a sophomore and captaining the freshman baseball team as well. Yearbooks reveal that he was nicknamed “Spider” and describe him as an “able leader” and a “true Cornellian.”
After graduation, Clute coached baseball at Cornell for two years. He went on to open a Ford dealership, the Clute Motor Company, in Elmira in 1916. He died in 1978, and he holds a place in the Cornell Athletic Hall of Fame.
RMC’s Evan Earle models Clute’s historic uniform.