The Cardinals projected rookie Phil Clark to be their top reliever in 1958, but the role eventually went to the opposing pitcher who earned a win in Clark’s major-league debut.
Clark, who died Sept. 14, 2018, at 85, was a well-regarded prospect for the Cardinals in the 1950s. After graduating from Albany (Ga.) High School, Clark signed with St. Louis before the 1951 season and was assigned to his hometown Albany Cardinals, a Class D farm club.
Clark, 18, pitched 219 innings for Albany and was 18-7 with a 2.96 ERA. He spent the next two years in the Navy before returning to the Cardinals system in 1954.
A sensational 1957 season with the Class AA Houston Buffaloes elevated Clark’s status. The right-hander was 16-6 with a 1.83 ERA in 63 relief appearances that year.
High hopes
At spring training in 1958, Clark impressed with a string of eight scoreless innings in three exhibition games. “He’s temperamentally and physically equipped to be our No. 1 man in the bullpen.” Cardinals general manager Bing Devine told The Sporting News.
A sinkerball specialist with excellent control, Clark threw an assortment of pitches, but relied on a slider. Clark knew more about pitching technique than any other Cardinals prospect, scout Joe Mathes said.
The Sporting News reported Clark was “the best bet among the newcomers to stick and help the club” in 1958 and Sports Illustrated declared Clark as the rookie the Cardinals were “counting on most.”
On April 15, 1958, the Cardinals opened the season at home against the Cubs. Clark made his big-league debut in the seventh and pitched two scoreless innings, but the Cubs won, 4-0. Cubs starter Jim Brosnan pitched six innings, didn’t allow a run and got the win. Boxscore
After losing their first four games, the Cardinals won on April 20, 1958, against the Cubs at Chicago. Clark earned the save, holding the Cubs scoreless over the final three innings of a 9-4 Cardinals triumph. Brosnan, the Cubs’ starter, gave up four runs in three innings and was the losing pitcher. Boxscore
In his first three Cardinals appearances, all against the Cubs, Clark pitched a total of six scoreless innings. His next two outings, however, caused the Cardinals to lose confidence in him.
Changing course
On April 23, 1958, at San Francisco, Clark relieved in the bottom of the ninth with two outs, Giants runners on first and second and the Cardinals ahead, 7-4. The first batter Clark faced, Orlando Cepeda, hit a two-run triple and the next, Daryl Spencer, followed with a two-run home run, giving the Giants an 8-7 victory. Boxscore
In Clark’s next appearance, May 2, 1958, at St. Louis, he entered in the ninth with the Reds ahead, 4-3. He faced four batters and all reached base. Vada Pinson singled, Frank Robinson walked, George Crowe hit a three-run home run and Don Hoak doubled. Boxscore
Two weeks later, on May 20, 1958, the Cardinals sent Clark, 0-1 with one save and a 3.52 ERA in seven relief appearances, to their Class AAA Omaha farm club and acquired Brosnan from the Cubs for shortstop Al Dark.
In 12 starts for the 1958 Cardinals, Brosnan, an aspiring author, was 4-3 with a 4.50 ERA. Converted into a reliever by Cardinals manager Fred Hutchinson, Brosnan was 4-1 with seven saves and a 1.67 ERA in 21 relief appearances, successfully filling the role given to Clark at the start of the season.
Bullpen buddies
As the Cardinals began spring training in 1959, Brosnan was the closer and Clark, 10-6 with a 2.75 ERA in 44 relief appearances for Omaha in 1958, was a candidate for a bullpen role.
The two pitchers, whose career paths intersected so often in 1958, met for the first time during training camp and became friends. In his book, “The Long Season,” Brosnan wrote, “My first impressions of Phil Clark were reasonably soul-satisfying. Phil is a Georgia boy with a pleased-to-give-you-the-shirt-off-my back personality.”
Clark earned a spot on the Cardinals’ 1959 Opening Day roster and Brosnan wanted him as a road roommate, but the club assigned another pitcher, Alex Kellner, to room with Brosnan instead.
The erudite Brosnan, nicknamed “Professor,” and Kellner, a big-game hunter who roped mountain lions, were an odd couple. Kellner liked to watch TV westerns while Brosnan preferred to read. “I had to read my book with a pillow over my left ear, a pillow beneath my right ear and just enough light to see the larger type,” Brosnan wrote.
Tough game
Neither Clark nor Brosnan pitched well for the 1959 Cardinals.
On April 26, 1959, Clark entered a game against the Dodgers at St. Louis with the score tied at 9-9. He pitched a scoreless seventh, but in the eighth he gave up three runs, one earned. The Dodgers won, 17-11, and Clark was the losing pitcher. Boxscore
“Clark, being a good pitcher and knowing how to pitch, had made so many good pitches only to see them turned into handle-hits, bad hops over the infielders’ shoulders, bloops to the outfield and squibs through the infield, that a sympathetic observer, like a wife, could almost cry in desperation,” Brosnan wrote.
On May 9, 1959, Brosnan and Clark rode together to Busch Stadium for the game that day against the Cubs. Brosnan was in the training room when Clark walked in and asked Doc Bauman if he could use the phone. Clark called his wife and asked her to come get him. The Cardinals had informed him he was going back to the minors.
“He dropped the phone back onto its cradle, looked down at the floor for a moment and walked quickly from the room back to his locker,” Brosnan wrote. “I started to follow him, thought better of it, picked up the morning paper and went into the latrine to read.
“There was nothing I could say to Philip that would help. At cutdown date in organized baseball it’s every man for himself. My first reaction was relief that it wasn’t I who had just lost his job.”
Clark was 0-1 with a 12.86 ERA in seven relief appearances when the Cardinals demoted him. A month later, on June 8, 1959, Brosnan, 1-3 with two saves and a 4.91 ERA, was traded to the Reds for pitcher Hal Jeffcoat.
Brosnan regained his effectiveness with the Reds and was a relief ace in 1961 when they won the National League pennant.
Clark was with Omaha until July when he was traded to the St. Paul Saints, Class AAA farm club of the Dodgers, for pitcher Bob Darnell.
Clark pitched in the Dodgers’ minor-league system from 1959-61. He was a teacher, coach and assistant principal for public schools in Albany, Ga., from 1960-88.
A good, if sad, story. I need to re-read Brosnan again.
And, as for the loss to the Dodgers, none of the pitchers on either side distinguished themselves that day. Not even Koufax.
Thanks. Yes, you are right on all accounts. Jim Brosnan’s prose still rings true and honest and poignant all these years later. In “The Long Season,” he brilliantly described the cold hardness of the baseball business and the sadness of the demotion of friend and teammate Phil Clark: “If Phil had been the victim of bad breaks, part of the percentage of baseball, then that was just too bad. What they were looking for in the front office was a head for the ax. Any young victim would do,”