Conversations with the Herd: Dave Clark
- Brian M. Frank
- Sep 27
- 10 min read
By: Brian Frank
Dave Clark has fond memories of his time playing in the Queen City. The Buffalo Baseball Hall of Famer, who’s now the first base coach for the Houston Astros, spent parts of three seasons with the Bisons, playing at both War Memorial Stadium and Pilot Field (now known as Sahlen Field). He dominated at the plate in his time with the Herd, and his name can still be found all over the team’s modern-era leader board.
Clark grew up in Tupelo, Mississippi — where it looked like he was heading for a career as a boxer. He won both Gold Glove tournaments he entered, competed in the Pan American Games, and was headed for the Olympics when his boxing career was suddenly derailed due to politics.
“My uncle was a boxer,” Clark said in a recent interview with The Herd Chronicles. “He sparred with and against Sonny Liston. He’s the one that really got me into boxing. He taught me how to do it. I fell in love with it. I was the Gold Glove champ for two years. I thought I was going to have a career in that. I participated in two Gold Glove championships. I participated in the Pan Am Games. I was going to be on the Olympic team, but that was the year we boycotted. We were supposed to go to Moscow, but that’s when they had the invasion, and President Carter said to basically shut it down, which was a little disappointing. But I’ve always said, God has a plan for all of us, and it led me back to baseball.”

Clark played in three seasons with the Herd. Photo Courtesy of the Buffalo Bisons Baseball Club.
Clark went on to play college baseball at Jackson State University. He hit .363 his sophomore year, followed that up by hitting.378 with 13 home runs as a junior — and was named team MVP both seasons. In 1983, he was Cleveland’s first round pick, 11th overall, in Major League Baseball’s June Amateur Draft. Just a little over a year after being drafted, he was promoted to the Bisons, who were in the Double-A Eastern League at the time.
“I didn’t really know I was going to get called up from Waterloo,” Clark remembered. “I got the call, and I was happy about it. I was having a really good season there in Waterloo. I think I had like 20 home runs and hit a little bit over .300. So, I got the call to Buffalo. We were playing against Glens Falls. I remember facing this righty. He was one of those down and under guys. I think it was the first pitch I saw, I hit it out of the stadium.”
“So that was my first memory of Buffalo. I kept hearing about the wings, some of the guys that worked there like Fremo (Bisons super fan Frank Vallone), and some of the other guys there. But I had a blast. That was my first initial remembrance of playing in Buffalo.”
After playing for Double-A Waterbury in 1985 and Triple-A Maine in 1986, Clark was called up to the big leagues for the first time in September 1986. He played his first major-league game at Toronto’s Exhibition Stadium, having the unenviable task of making his big-league debut against Blue Jays ace and perennial All-Star Dave Stieb.
“The crazy thing about it is that I was told I was getting called up two days prior to that, it may have been three days — all I know is I sat in my place for two whole days and then I went up on September 3, which was my birthday,” Clark said. “They never said anything to me, but I think that was one of the reasons they wanted to wait was to bring me up on my birthday. What was really wild about this, and I tell this story all the time, I had all this time to think about my first at-bat and my first game. So, I had this dream that I was not going to be able to get the bat off my shoulder — and it came true. I took three sliders and the bat never left my shoulder. I was like, you’ve got to be kidding me. He punched me out my first at-bat. I can’t remember what I did my second at-bat, but my third at-bat was a base hit up the middle.”
A few weeks later, he hit his first-big league home run off California Angels starter Kirk McCaskill. It was a day that was memorable for Clark not only because of what he did, but also because of who was there to witness it.
“I was playing against my childhood hero, Reggie Jackson,” Clark smiled. “I was playing right field that day and Reggie came up to bat, and he hit a home run to right field over my head — and that chant of “Reggie! Reggie!” made the hair I had on my arms stand up, because here I am playing against my childhood hero. My first at-bat against McCaskill I hit one straight away out to center field. After the game, Reggie signed a baseball for me and sent it over for me. I ended up telling him that story last year when I came back with the Astros. I was telling him all about it. He couldn’t remember it, but I was like — hey, I appreciate everything you’ve done.”
Clark returned to Buffalo in 1987 when the Bisons were in Triple-A. He was hoping to make Cleveland’s Opening Day roster, but the team signed a legendary veteran hurler who took his roster spot.
“I was told in spring training that I had made the ball club,” he remembered. “I think it was a couple days later, they signed Steve Carlton, so here I am the odd man out.”

Starring in the outfield for the Herd. Photo courtesy of the Buffalo Bisons Baseball Club.
After spending some time in Buffalo, Clark returned to the big leagues in mid-May but didn’t receive much playing time in his brief stay.
“I thought they had brought me up to play,” he said. “Corey Snyder was struggling at the time. I don’t know if they thought I could come up and light a fire under his feet — but that’s not why I wanted the call up. I wanted to be called up to play. So, they sent me back down, which was pretty disheartening. I went down and picked up where I left off and ended up having a pretty good year down there.”
He did more than have a “pretty good year” — he had one of the greatest seasons in Bisons history. Clarke hit .340, still the team’s modern-era record for batting average, while leading the team with 30 home runs, which ranks fifth in the team’s modern era. He also had a .621 slugging percentage (first in the modern era) and a .413 on-base percentage (fifth in the modern era), an incredible 1.034 OPS, and was named the winner of the team’s Stan Barron MVP Award.
Clark’s season was one for ages — and he was just one of many big bats Buffalo had that season.
“Offensively we had a powerhouse,” he remembered. “Don Lovell led off, Jay Bell hit second, I hit third, Rod Allen hit fourth, Eddie Williams hit fifth, Randy Washington hit sixth or seventh. I remember playing with Craig Smajstria. He was our second baseman who had a real good year for us… That was a fun ball club.”
“Steve Swisher — that was his first year managing at the Triple-A level,” Clark continued. “I loved playing for Swish. He was hard-nosed. He was a hard ass. But he taught you how to play the game the right way and he taught you mental toughness.”
Clark enjoyed playing at War Memorial Stadium, affectionately known as The Rockpile to local sports fans. The field had a unique layout, having been retrofitted into what was essentially a football stadium — with a 30-foot-high right-field wall said to be 310 feet from home plate.
“The Old Rockpile — I had some great memories there,” Clark said. “It was an old stadium, but I absolutely loved playing there. The ball traveled well to left. I got pitched away a lot because of the short right-field wall. I learned how to hit the ball the other way by playing there.”
“I loved that right-field wall. I think I ended up having 26 assists that season. I learned how to play that wall. Guys thought they were getting doubles on base hits off that wall, and I’d turn around and fire it into second and boom — they’re out. I had quite a few of those.”
Clark returned to Buffalo in 1992 — but this time he was with a new organization, the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Bisons were also playing at a new ballpark, playing in their fifth season at state of the art Pilot Field (now known as Sahlen Field). Clark had another big year for the Herd. In 78 games, he slashed .304/.390/.549 with 11 home runs, 55 RBIs, and had a .939 OPS.
“Another really good ball club,” he remembered. “I think we won about 90-something games that year. I spent about half the year in Pittsburgh. I was up and down a lot that year. They had a lot of injuries. Gary Redus and Barry Bonds got hurt, and a couple other guys got hurt.”
“I got a chance to go up and play for (Pirates manager) Jim Leyland for the first time,” Clark continued. “One thing I remember about the spring of ’92, was he (Leyland) told me I wasn’t going to make the ball club, but he made my decision a lot easier, because I could have become a free agent — but he said, ‘Dave, we want you. We want to keep you. I wish we could have gotten you before. But I’m going to show you how much we want to keep you — I’m going to give you a major-league contract.’
Clark added with a laugh, “And I was like, oh my god, yes — I'm signing back with the Pirates. So, they knew they had a safety net in me at the Triple-A level, just in case they needed some help.”
“That ball club had some really good players — Will Pennyfeather, Kevin Young, and Al Martin. Brian Dorsett was our guy. He was our leader. We had Tom Prince. We had Eduardo (Eddie Zambrano), who could play anywhere on the field. We had Whitey (Jeff Richardson) as our second baseman. So many guys I’m probably forgetting right now — but a really good offensive ball club. (On the pitching staff), we had Tim Wakefield and Steve Cooke.”

Batting in downtown Buffalo. Photo Courtesy of the Buffalo Bisons Baseball Club.
The '92 Bisons were led by long-time minor-league manager Marc Bombard.
“Bomby made it fun,” Clark said. “He knew he had a good ball club. He didn’t really have to manage that much, because he had some veterans on the ball club that took care of everything that he didn’t have to take care of. Of course, Doc Edwards was there too as our hitting guy, and Spin Williams was the pitching guy. We had a big-league staff, and they just let us play.”
Clark ended up playing in 905 major-league games for Cleveland, the Cubs, Royals, Pirates, Dodgers, and Astros, hitting .264 in his career with a .745 OPS. While he was still playing, he never saw himself getting into coaching — but when an opportunity to work in a big-league front office fell through, a call from Pittsburgh Pirates general manager Cam Bonifay convinced him to give coaching a try.
“It didn’t take me that long to make my decision that I was going to give it a try and see if I liked it,” Clark said. “My first year, I was the hitting coach in the Gulf Coast League. Then they made some changes in Pittsburgh, and I ended up going to Triple-A and being the hitting coach the second half of the season. The next year, I’m back in the big leagues. I was the hitting coach. You know, it’s a tough job, especially when it’s only one guy doing it all, trying to get 15 guys ready to play a baseball game for a 162-game season. I thought it was a lot of work. I really did enjoy it, but it was something I knew I had more to offer than just being a hitting coach. That’s when I started managing in the minor leagues — and I absolutely loved it.”
After spending a pair of seasons managing in the Pirates’ system, Clark joined the Astros organization in 2005 and remained with them until 2012.
“The Astros gave me an opportunity to come and manage their new Double-A team in Corpus Christi, Texas, and I jumped all over it,” he said. “It led me to staying here with the Astros, and I’ve had three years in Double-A, one year in Triple-A — in 2009 I went to the big leagues with (manager) Cecil Cooper. They ended up letting Cooper go the last 13 games of the season, and they named me the interim manager. I really, truly thought I was going to be there for a while. But they chose Brad Mills. Millsy kept me on his staff, and I became his third base coach.”

Clark is now the Astros first base coach. Photo Credit: Brian Frank, The Herd Chronicles
He later moved to Detroit, where he was on the Tigers’ big-league coaching staff from 2013 to 2022, serving as a third base coach, first base coach, and outfield instructor. He returned to the Astros in 2023.
Clark has now been involved in professional baseball for 42 seasons, either playing, coaching, or managing — with three of those seasons coming in Buffalo. In 2008, he was honored for his accomplishments in the Queen City by being inducted into the Buffalo Baseball Hall of Fame.
“That means a lot,” he said of joining the team’s Hall of Fame. “I was surprised by it. I never really even thought about it, but I got the call… I couldn’t go (to the induction ceremony) because of my duties I had at Round Rock. So, I did a video for them with (former Voice of the Bisons and current Voice of the NHL's Nashville Predators) Pete Weber. Pete saw me in Nashville when I was managing there. We shot a live video so they could send it there for the Hall of Fame induction.”
“I absolutely loved those three years I was there,” he continued. “Partially three years anyway. I thought they had the best fans in baseball. I know when I went back in ’92, I was looking forward to it, I really was, because I enjoyed myself there in ’87, and I was looking forward to going back and playing in front of those guys again. They always say it’s a football and hockey town, but I’ll tell you what — they love their baseball there.”