Dave Clark had a front-row seat to Jose Altuve's first career home run. In fact, he tried to prevent it. Clark was the third-base coach for the Astros in 2011 when a diminutive second baseman who posted eye-popping numbers at Double-A was called up, a day after the club traded away starting second baseman Jeff Keppinger. Altuve began his career with a seven-game hitting streak and really hasn't stopped hitting since. But it wasn't until Aug. 20, 2011 -- one month after his MLB debut -- that Altuve hit his first home run. It was an inside-the-park homer at Minute Maid Park off Madison Bumgarner of the Giants. Altuve rocketed a ball off the left-center-field wall, took off for third when it rolled along the warning track and proceeded to run through Clark's stop sign to score standing up. "I think my hands were up too high," Clark said with a loud laugh. |
Clark joked about the homer recently upon his return to the team as the Astros' first-base coach after a decade away from the organization. Altuve, who has since carved out a career that's on a Hall of Fame arc, is the only member of the club remaining from when Clark was last coaching in Houston (2009-13). "You saw it in him as a kid, that grittiness, that wanting to be the best," Clark said of Altuve. "To see that kid mature and become the player he is, I can't say I would have guessed it would have got to that level, but he's fun to watch. He really is." Clark, 61, played 13 years in the Major Leagues, finishing with the Astros in 1998. In addition to Houston, he has spent time on big league staffs with Pittsburgh (2001-02) and Detroit (2014-20). Clark managed the Astros' Double-A affiliate in Corpus Christi from 2005-07 and Triple-A Round Rock in '08 before he was promoted to third-base coach in '09. He was the team's interim manager for the final 13 games of the '09 season. |
Clark said general manager Dana Brown called him out of the blue a few weeks ago to gauge his interest in returning, and he had an interview with Brown, manager Joe Espada and senior advisor to ownership and baseball operations Jeff Bagwell -- Clark's former Astros teammate -- at Minute Maid Park. He's excited to get back into a big league uniform for the first time since 2020. "You know what, it's very special," Clark said. "I was rooting for them every time they would play except for when I was in Detroit and we wanted to beat them. I helped develop a lot of those players that were there early. It was fun to be with them at the big league level, and it's fun to see the organization thrive. For a while there, man, it was bad. It was a rebuild and basically was a tear-down, but they're reaping the benefits of it now. The organization looks like it's in really, really good shape now. I'm very excited to get back." |
Clark spent last season managing at Idaho Falls in the Pioneer League, which he said was tough but rewarding work. In 2022, he helped run a Major League Baseball developmental camp in the Appalachian League, based in Johnson City, Tenn. In 2021, Clark said he "did something crazy." He coached an 18-and-under travel team outside of Memphis, Tenn. "That was a lot of work," he said. "We probably played about three or four games a week. I had a lot of guys that didn't even make the high school teams, so that's how bad it was. But I will tell you this. They got better. I think I had a roster of like 16 players, and I want to say six or seven ended up getting college scholarships." Clark is eager to get to work in Houston and help Espada in his first year as manager. "He couldn't have walked into a better situation than with the Houston Astros," he said. "The fact he knows the organization and knows the players, it's a perfect situation." |
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MLB this week announced a four-day event called Spring Breakout in which each team will field a team of their top prospects in exhibition games against another club's top prospects while also creating in-park fan engagement opportunities centered around their up-and-coming players. • Complete Spring Breakout coverage | 5 of the best games All 30 MLB clubs will assemble rosters filled with 20-25 of their best young talent. Each team will play at least one seven-inning exhibition game as part of the initiative. The Astros will participate in the event March 17 in Jupiter, Fla., where they play the Cardinals' prospects at Roger Dean Stadium. That game will be followed by a regular Grapefruit League contest between Houston and St. Louis. The Astros' top five prospects as ranked by MLB Pipeline (Jacob Melton, Luis Baez, Spencer Arrighetti, Brice Matthews and Zach Dezenzo) could take the field together that day. |
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THIS WEEK IN ASTROS HISTORY |
Astros owner Drayton McLane presented Roy Oswalt with a new bulldozer in a ceremony in front of Minute Maid Park, fulfilling a promise he made to his ace pitcher prior to Game 6 of the NLCS a couple of months earlier. McLane told Oswalt if he pitched the Astros to the World Series that night, he'd gift him a bulldozer. "He wasn't a big talker," McLane said. "I started to give him a real pep talk, saying we had to win this game because we lost it under this situation last year. He didn't move. He didn't acknowledge I was there. I thought, 'I need to think of something quickly,' and I thought of the bulldozer. I said, 'Roy, if you win this game, I'll buy you a brand-new Caterpillar bulldozer.' He jumped straight up and threw the towel off his head and said, 'You've got a deal!'" Oswalt pitched seven strong innings to lead the Astros to a 5–1 win and into the World Series for the first time in their history. Oswalt, who had 40 acres of land near Weir, Miss., told McLane sometime earlier that he wished he had a bulldozer to help his father, a logger, remove tree stumps on the land. A few weeks later, McLane delivered a yellow Caterpillar D6 bulldozer at a price tag of $230,000. "I remember about the sixth or seventh inning, I was walking off the field thinking, 'I just won a bulldozer,'" Oswalt said. "I told him after the game, 'Hey, it doesn't matter what color or what size. Just call me when I need to pick it up.'" |
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