The Pecan Park Eagle

Bob Clear wore 17 different club uniforms from 1946-1967.

I had a very interesting comment from a fellow named Mike Ross in response to a brief piece I wrote three days ago on the death of the late Bob Clear. It reminded me again of how much there is to wonder about in the way human energy moves forward, for better and worse, in its play of influence upon others.

So much hinges on whether we give or withhold from others.

As a longtime minor league instructor and bullpen coach for the Angels, Bob Clear was one of the two main voices who suggested that the club take a bad-hitting catcher named Troy Percival and convert him into a relief pitcher. Of course, we know what happened from there. Percival went on to become one of the top closers in the game.

Clear also exerted an enormous amount of influence upon a young catcher in the Angels system. Although this particular player never made it to the big leagues as a player, he learned how to be a teacher of others from another fellow who never played in the big leagues either. Today that young catcher is now middle-aged but quite successful as the manager of the Tampa Bay Rays. According to Mike Ross, Maddon credits the late Bob Clear with being the most important mentor in his baseball life.

It’s a small world, except for one big always-present wild card crazy thing. – The more we become willing to share what we have to give with others, the more our world of connection grows and spreads across the lily pond of human experience on how to improve upon and solve all kinds of human-initiated problems.

Maybe if we had more Bob Clears working in offshore drilling technology we wouldn’t be facing the mess we now have on our hands. Who knows?

All I know for sure is that I just had to bring you this rest of the Bob Clear story. The details of Bob’s later baseball career are beautifully covered in an article about him on Wikipedia. Just Google “Bob Clear” and go there for further details.

Former Houston Buff Pitcher Bob Clear Passed Away on April 6, 2010 at Age 82.

I only this morning learned that former Houston Buff pitcher Bob Clear (1951-53) passed away on April 6th at his home in California. He was 82 years old.

Bob Clear (BR/TR) (5’9″, 170 lbs.) never was a guy fans confused with the second coming of Dizzy Dean. He was never little more than a short-time, fill-in spot starter/reliever on the 1951 Texas League championship Buffs club and a regular low performing guy with the not-so-hot Buff teams of 1952 and 1953, but he was a hard worker who got by on guile and an ability to mix and locate his pitches.

Bob never made it up to the big club Cardinals during those pitcher loaded farm stock years, but he managed to ping out a pretty fair record for himself over 16 seasons in the minors (1946, 1948-61, 1967). Overall he won 162, lost 115, and posted a 3.72 career earned run average.

As a Houston Buff, Bob Clear was 1-2, 8.13 in only nine games in 1951. In 1952, Clear was 9-12, 3.45 – and 4-6, 3.35 in 1953 – and all together, not a lot to write home about.

Clear experienced his best season in baseball the year following his last 1953 Buffs year. Moving up to the 1954 AAA Omaha Cardinals, Bob recorded a 20-11 season with a 2.93 ERA. The showing still failed to earn his shot with the ’55 St. Louis club and his record for that season at Omaha slipped back to 1-10 and 4.42 in partial time service. Clear may have been injured in 1955, but I have no way to check that out at this writing.

For his career, Bob Clear posted two additional 20-plus win seasons (at Class C- level each time) for 1957 Douglas and 1960 Grand Forks. Clear’s career had a chance to end quietly in 1961 with a 4-5, 5.05 final season, but he came back on a two-game lark in 1967 at age 39 to go 1-0 with a 1.64 ERA in two relief jobs for Class A Clinton.

After 1967, Bob Clear never played another inning. He eventually retired to civilian life and lived out his final days in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.

Bob Clear was born on December 14, 1927 in Denver, Colorado. He gave his early productive life to baseball and he played three seasons for our Houston Buffs. That’s enough resume to make it into my memory bank.

Time flies. The last time I saw Bob Clear he was the same age and about the same size as my 25-year old son Neal is now. (Yep, my kid’s only 25. I was a late bloomer in several areas.)

Now I suddenly learn from an Internet data site on minor league baseball that young Bob Clear has recently died at age 82. Where has the time gone – for Bob Clear – and all the rest of us too, for that matter? We really don’t have a long time to be here, do we?

The death of anyone I’ve ever known always makes me think of that old poem by some anonymous author. It begins with this line: “The clock of life is wound but once and no one has the power, to know just when the hands will stop, at late or early hour.”

My positive thoughts and prayers go out to the Bob Clear family this morning.

Long live our memory of the Houston Buffs. All of them.