Jul 01 2009 11:18 AM
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Jack Clark Takes Jabs at Mets of Mid-’80s
July 1, 2009
From left, Gary Carter, Darryl Strawberry and Keith Hernandez, Mets regulars in 1985.
By KEN BELSON
The Mets have had their rivals over the years — the Chicago Cubs in 1969, the Philadelphia Phillies more recently — but the St. Louis Cardinals of the middle to late 1980s were perhaps the fiercest opponents they have faced.
The teams not only battled on the field, but also despised each other off it.
As it turns out, the old feuds continue to simmer. Jack Clark, the cleanup hitter on those St. Louis teams, called those Mets a bunch of cheats and showboats Tuesday in an interview on KTRS-AM radio, which broadcasts Cardinals games.
Clark told McGraw Milhaven, the morning host at the station, that the mutual hatred ran so deep that he purposely snubbed the Mets when they played together in All-Star Games.
“I wanted to let them know I wasn’t glad to be there with them and their teammate, didn’t want to be on any team or be a teammate with them, and we were going to battle,” said Clark, who provides commentary on some Cardinals games and manages the Springfield Sliders, a summer collegiate league team in Illinois.
Clark took particular aim at Gary Carter, the Mets’ catcher in those years, saying that he “talked his way more into the Hall of Fame than deserving it.” Carter, he said, craved the spotlight, which was “pretty sickening and disgusting to everybody else.”
Carter, who manages the Long Island Ducks of the independent Atlantic League, said he was surprised by Clark’s comments.
“He’s entitled to his own opinion, but the numbers speak for themselves, and I don’t think anybody can talk their way into the Hall of Fame,” Carter said in a statement relayed by the team’s public-relations officer.
Clark played for the Cardinals from 1985 to 1987, during which he hit 66 home runs. He also played for the San Francisco Giants, the Yankees, the San Diego Padres and the Boston Red Sox.
In the interview, Clark reignited an old issue when he said that Howard Johnson, a Mets third baseman in those years, used a corked bat. Whitey Herzog, the Cardinals’ manager at the time, made a similar claim.
In 1987, one of Johnson’s bats was X-rayed. The X-rays were negative. Clark appeared not to know that.
“That just goes to show those guys were trying to cheat and, you know, it didn’t end up working for them anyhow,” he said, seemingly glossing over the Mets’ World Series title in 1986. “So if his was corked, I’m sure a few other guys’ over there were corked, also.”
Johnson, now the Mets’ batting coach, said Clark seemed to have forgotten a few key facts.
“It’s kind of funny, because in my most productive years, I used a model that he gave me, an M253,” Johnson said in Milwaukee, where the Mets were playing the Brewers.
An excerpt of the interview can be heard on nytimes.com/sports, and more was available Tuesday on the KTRS site. A full version of the interview will be aired by the radio station on Wednesday morning.
Ben Shpigel contributed reporting from Milwaukee. |