1974

Lance Clemons was born on July 6, 1947, in Philadelphia. He attended Rosemont Elementary School and Radnor-Delaware County High School and graduated in 1969 from West Chester State College (West Chester, Pennsylvania) with a B.S. in Health and Physical Education.

In 1968 the American League added two expansion teams, the Kansas City Royals and Seattle Pilots, to start play in 1969. He was the Royals' seventh-round selection. Drafted as an outfielder, he played both first base and outfield. 

In 1969 he played for the Class-A (Midwest League) Waterloo Hawks. In 1969, he pitched five innings, in two games, for the Florida Instructional League Royals. He did not have a decision in either game, but he hit .370 in Florida.

Over the winter, the decision was made to convert him to a pitcher. His first decisions came in 1970. He pitched first in Single-A ball for Waterloo (renamed the Waterloo Royals). Promoted to the Triple-A Omaha Royals, he was again 1-2, starting eight games and working another eight games in relief. His ERA was 4.67. 

Lance started 1971 with Omaha and threw three shutouts, including a seven-inning one-hitter in June, against Tulsa. He was promoted and got his first big-league decision in August, against the Red Sox. He worked in seven more games, for a total of 24 innings by year’s end, with a 1-0 record, and a 4.13 ERA. 

In December at the winter meetings in Phoenix, the Royals traded him to the Houston Astros. He never pitched for the Astros, other than during spring training. He was assigned to their Triple-A team at Oklahoma City, but never played there since he was traded in April 1972, to the St. Louis Cardinals, who sent him to Tulsa.

Late in spring training 1973, he was traded to the Red Sox who assigned him to their Triple-A team in Pawtucket and he spent the full year there.

He both started and ended the 1974 season in Boston, spending the bulk of the year with Pawtucket again. In his first appearance for the Red Sox, he retired the three batters he faced at Yankee Stadium in April. He spent the rest of the season at Pawtucket, returning in time to pitch one scoreless inning in Boston, in October.

In 1975, he was a non-roster invitee to spring training with the Red Sox. He didn’t make the team and spent the full year at Pawtucket, without a call-up to the big-league club. That was his last year in baseball. His record as a pitcher was 2-1with a career batting average of .250. 

After the season was over, the family moved to Florida from their home in Cranston, Rhode Island. Lance got a job being the physical education teacher at the local high school, Springstead High School in Spring Hill, Florida. He did that until 1981 and also coached the baseball team during those years. 

He then went to UPS and started from the bottom, but he worked his way up to regional supervisor for the Loss Prevention Department. He started doing pre-loads, where they basically just load the trucks, and then he got hired on as a regular driver. From there he became a manager.

In 1992 Lance Clemons was inducted into the West Chester University Hall of Fame, and in 2006 he was placed in the Radnor High School Hall of Fame. He died of lung cancer on January 22, 2008, in Brooksville, Florida. He was 60 years old.