1928

Cliff Garrison was born in Belmont, Oklahoma on August 13, 1906. The family moved to Tempe, Arizona and Cliff graduated from Tempe High School. He played baseball as a catcher and an outfielder, but had started pitching for Tempe and recorded four shutouts during the 1925 season.

The Yankees signed him in 1926, and planned to send him to Corsicana (Texas League) to develop as a pitcher. He put up an 11-8 season for the 1927 Edinburg Bobcats in the Texas Valley League.

The Yankees let him go to the Red Sox in 1928 and his first appearance was in April. He made six total appearances with the Red Sox - two in April, two in May, and one each in June and July. He allowed 14 runs in 16 innings pitched for a 7.88 ERA. The Red Sox released him in July and he played with the Portland Mariners (New England League).

By the end of 1928, he was on the Pittsfield Hillies, and joined them for spring training in 1929, where they planned to try to work him out as catcher, reverting back to the position he’s started at back in high school. Assigned once more to Portland, he decided to go back home to Los Angeles instead, where his family had relocated. 

In 1929, he played for a while for the Mesa Jewels of the Arizona State League, but was released in July.

Cliff then played a lot of semipro baseball in the Woodland, California, area. The Woodland Oaks offered him a position and the Oaks became the power of the Sacramento Valley League in the 1930s. 

In 1930, he moved to Yolo County, California and lived there the remainder of his life, becoming a deputy sheriff for the county and then as the  Woodland, California, chief of police from 1939 to 1943.

Cliff Garrison died on August 25, 1994, at the Hillhaven Woodland Health Care Center in Woodland, Cal. at age 88.