Clark a Catalyst for Cardinals

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[i:e515c1e4b4]by Rick Hummel
originally printed: The Sporting News, March 3, 1986[/i:e515c1e4b4]

[size=18:e515c1e4b4]Jack Smelled the Roses at New Address[/size:e515c1e4b4]

<img src="http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/images/baseball/stratomatic/1986/story_photos/jack_clark_150x195.jpg" align="left" style="margin-right: 10px;" /> ST. PETERSBURG. Fla.—After nine years of smelling industrial waste instead of roses, Jack Clark inhaled the aroma that surrounds a champion. He not only went from San Francisco to St. Louis, he went from hoping he would win to knowing he would.

It crystallized in the late afternoon sun on an October day in Los Angeles. In the sixth game of the National League Championship Series, the Cardinals trailed by one run with two outs in the ninth inning and runners on second and third. First base was unoccupied, but Dodgers Manager Tom Lasorda elected to confront Clark. Tom Niedenfuer's first pitch, a fastball, was delivered to the left-field pavilion a few seconds later, and the Cardinals were in the World Series.

Clark, who had feared he might not be able to perform in the playoffs because of an injury to his left side suffered late In the season, tossed his bat aside with a flourish and jogged slowly toward first base, stopping to point a finger toward the Cardinals' dugout.

It was a gesture of thanks. "They had helped me a lot," Clark said. "Now, I had helped them out."

That the Cardinals did not go on to win the World Series did not particularly lessen Clark's enjoyment of the season, especially that moment in Los Angeles.

"It was the way I had always imagined the big leagues being like," Clark said. "That type of moment I had dreamed of my whole life. You hear so many stories of great players not getting there, getting to the World Series. I can say I got the chance to play in the World Series. Win or lose, I got to play."

Whether Lasorda should have walked Clark and pitched to Andy Van Slyke was debated well into the night - and into the winter. Should he?

"I don't think so," Clark said, "because Niedenfuer had struck me out the at-bat before. I might have walked me if the count had gone to 2-and-0 or 3-and-1. He just didn't get the ball where he wanted to."

From time to time this winter, Clark watched a videotape of that game. "You don't ever think you're ever going to get in that position," he said. "That was the highlight of my career, something I'll never forget."

Clark was the intimidator in the middle of the lineup that the Cardinals had to have to win the pennant. Although he missed a month because of his Injury, Clark still had his customary year with 22 homers and 87 runs batted in. But when postseason honors were accorded, they went to teammates Willie McGee and Vince Coleman or Manager Whitey Herzog. Teammates Tom Herr, John Tudor, Ozzie Smith and perhaps even Joaquin Andujar got more recognition.

After years of being the most visible player on the Giants, Clark blended into the fabric in St. Louis. "You don't have to do more than you can do," Clark said. "You just do what you do. My job is to be the threat in the lineup.

"I'm not a home-run hitter, but there's a chance that on one pitch I might hit a home run."

One that wins a pennant, for example, or a key game late in the season against Montreal. On the previous pitch, Clark had reinjured his side when he checked his swing, but he cast that discomfort aside on the next pitch. It would be his last swing for 10 days, but it had beaten the Expos and won a game the Cardinals needed to win.

"It's fun being with an organization that can get there every year," Clark said.

"They traded four guys to get me, and that felt good. Everything happened good for me. I had some problems in San Francisco. and there still are a lot of problems in San Francisco. But I don't have to worry about anything now except to win that day."

The 1986 season will be the last on a four-year contract that will pay Clark $1.3 million this year. He says he wants to continue playing in St. Louis, but little has been accomplished on a new contract.

"I was kind of hoping it would get settled," he said. "I was almost sure something would have been done by now. When I've gone into a season without a contract, I've tried to show I was worth it. I want to do well and I try to hit the ball farther than I can. People say, 'Be yourself,' but it doesn't work that way. I would prefer that something be worked out before the season."

After some years of tumult in San Francisco, Clark enjoyed a season without controversy in St. Louis. "In a situation like San Francisco, losing gets under everybody's skin, reporters', too. They start looking for everything.

"If I do bad, I want it to be written that I missed a ball or struck out. But if I do good, I don't want it written about. I didn't do it myself. The pitchers had to pitch. A lot of things had to happen."

Early in his first season with the Cardinals, Clark realized he was working for a different kind of manager. "Probably the most important thing for me was playing for a guy like Whitey," he said. "He knows the game so well, and he makes it easy. You want to win for the Cardinals and you want to win for the fans and you want to win for him.

"When he made a move, you never had second-guessers. He had reasons. When I played against the Cardinals, you knew that he would probably outmanage your manager somewhere in the game. You knew you had to beat the other team and him, too."

Clark disagrees with those who think the Cardinals cannot repeat as N.L. champions.

"Everybody is talking about the Mets again, like it's automatically on the table," he said. "They were saying if the (Keith) Hernandez problem (concerning testimony in a Pittsburgh cocaine trial) was resolved, everything would be all right. Well, let them do all the talking. As long as our pitchers do what they did last season, we'll be all right. I think we'll win a lot of one-run games. Our pitchers never give in. They would walk a guy with the bases loaded rather than give up a grand slam. They make other teams earn runs instead of giving them big innings."

Although Clark is the only real hammer for the Cardinals, he minimizes his importance by citing his injury in late August.

"I was out six weeks, and it didn't hurt us at all. We still won the division," he said. "People say we would have won the World Series if we'd had Vince Coleman. But if he'd hit .490, we probably wouldn't have won anyway."

St Louis fans took losing the World Series to Kansas City hard, especially considering the Cardinals won three of the first four games and Don Denkinger's unfortunate call in the ninth inning of the sixth game, with the Cardinals leading, 1-0.

Clark. however, didn't feel that badly about the way things went. "It was a bad call, but those things happen. You can't harp on that," he said. "They came back. They didn't have too much problem in the seventh game."

Clark said he would have felt worse if the Cardinals had lost in the N.L. playoffs. The atmosphere of the all-Missouri World Series wasn't a torrid one, as he viewed it.

"We had a lot of friends on Kansas City, like Lonnie Smith and Dane lorg, and they had a lot of friends on our team, like Darrell Porter and Steve Braun and Whitey, who had been at Kansas City.

"lt lust seemed like a spring training game. The importance of it wasn't there. We just weren't for it. We were happy for the Royals, and they were happy for us. It wasn't like we had a killer-type attitude. Everybody was like back home. Whoever won was no big deal because it was like we won anyhow. It took a little bit away. The games kind of floated along instead of us really taking it to them."

Clark's shining moment had come that sunny day in Los Angeles - or perhaps the February day he was traded to the Cardinals.

"There were a lot of special characters and individuals on our team," he said. "If my career would end tomorrow, I have that to look back on. It's something written in concrete, and nobody can ever take that away."

But, upon reflection, perhaps there was one thing missing.

"I would like," Clark said, "to be involved in a parade."