Jack Clark, My First "Favorite Player"

When I started this blog early in the Covid-19 era, I talked a little bit about my entree into the worlds of baseball and card collecting running through Jack Clark, outfielder for the San Francisco Giants circa 1975-1984. My first father/son baseball bonding memory comes from 1976, when I was 8 and in the backyard of our Sacramento home, and my dad telling me that the kid that just hit a home run was a rookie named Jack Clark. In the next few years, Mr. Clark would become my personal idol, so much so that I even wrote a school essay about him in 6th grade and why he was probably the most important human being on the planet circa 1979.

Now I'm 52 and I'm collecting his baseball cards (again). How about that? He's a guy that I'll forever and always associate with my youth and the San Francisco Giants - and yet there are Cardinals, Yankees, Padres and Red Sox fans that hold their version of Jack Clark tight to their bosoms. I mean, he was an absolute monster for the 1987 Cardinals - the ones that beat the Giants in my very first playoffs as a Giants fan! - and finished third in MVP voting that year.

Clark wasn't just a hitter of dingers - the dude knew how to get on base in a big way. He had a lifetime OBP of .379, and finished over .400 four different times. For some reason, he just looked really cool to me, too - the ultimate pro athlete to 8-9-10-11-year-old me, even though, in retrospect, Clark's a bit of a dork (like me). He was never much of an interviewee on the post-game shows ("Well you know, Lon, we're just going to go out there and give it our best" etc.), but man - at least in my memories, he was always on base, always hustling, always coming through when I wanted him to - even on some absolutely rotten SF Giants teams.

My card collection for Clark is accumulating nicely. I have something like 60 late-career Jack Clark cards on the way to me via a Card Barrel order today. Here are some of my favorites so far. First, there's the 1979 Kellogg's 3-D Superstars card you see at the top of the post. Check out this awesome 1975 minor league card from the Edmonton Drillers:

Infielder, you ask? Yeah - actually he played a bit of third base early in his career, and later in his post-Giants days, played some first base as well. Here's a 2004 Upper Deck autographed Clark card:

...and a 2005 Upper Deck "Legendary Linage" relic:

I also have a few of KNBR radio's cards that they put out with the San Francisco police department in 1979, including this Clark card. On the back of it, it helpfully informs us that "You can increase your average against becoming a traffic statistic by obeying traffic safety rules". 

Finally, here are two cards from Drakes Bakeries, 1983 and 1981 respectively. More Clark gems to come when I get that Card Barrel order in the door.