Dave Clark

David Earl Clark

• Bats Left, Throws Right
• Height 6' 2", Weight 210 lb.
• School Jackson State University
• High School Shannon High School
• Debut September 3, 1986
• Final Game September 27, 1998
• Born September 3, 1962 in Tupelo, MS USA

BR page

Biographical Information

Dave Clark was not affiliated with the Dave Clark Five. But he was a two-time MVP of the Jackson State baseball team and a college All-American who was a first round pick of the Cleveland Indians and delightfully named scout Red Gaskill in 1983. Dave was a spare part outfielder over parts of thirteen seasons, seeing much of his action with the Pittsburgh Pirates teams of the mid-1990s. In 110 games in 1993, Dave hit .271/.358/.444 with 11 home runs, following that up with his strongest line (.296/.355/.489) and 10 home runs in 86 games in the strike-shortened 1994 season. He saw postseason action in two of his final three seasons, capping his career with two walks in two trips to the plate for the Houston Astros in the 1998 Division Series.

Dave became a coach with the 2000 GCL Pirates until midseason, then was a coach with the Nashville Sounds. In 2001 and 2002, he was hitting coach of the Pirates. He was interim manager of the Astros for the last two weeks of the 2009 season, replacing the fired Cecil Cooper. He stayed with the club as third base coach under manager Brad Mills from 2010 to 2012, then moved across the diamond to first base coach when Bo Porter was hired to manage in 2013. In 2014, he moved to the Detroit Tigers as third base coach under newly appointed manager Brad Ausmus. In 2020 he moved across the diamond to become their first base coach, but was dismissed at the end of the season along with most of the team's coaches.

In 2024, he returned to the team he had once managed, the Astros, as the first base coach.

His younger brother, Louis, was an NFL wide receiver from 1987 to 1993, then worked in a number of front office jobs. Dave's first sport, before baseball, was boxing; he was hoping to qualify for the U.S. Olympic boxing team for the 1980 Moscow games, using his brother Louis as a sparring partner (or punching bag, as Louis later told an interviewer). He was good enough to have been invited to the U.S. Olympic trials. These plans were laid aside when President Jimmy Carter announced in late 1979 that the U.S. would boycott the Moscow games as a result of the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan. Dave focused on baseball after that. He was planning to join the Marines before Jackson State issued him a baseball scholarship, making it possible for him to go to college (his family included 15 children, so the amount of financial support his lower-middle class parents could provide for any of them was limited). Louis was also quite a gifted baseball player, but he got to college on a football scholarship and he made full use of that opportunity.

Preceded by Cecil Cooper

Houston Astros Manager 2009

Succeeded by Brad Mills

Year-by-Year Managerial Record

Year	Team	League	Record	Finish	Organization	Playoffs	Notes
2003	Lynchburg Hillcats	Carolina League	76-59	2nd	Pittsburgh Pirates	Lost League Finals
2004	Hickory Crawdads	South Atlantic League	85-55	2nd	Pittsburgh Pirates	League Champs
2005	Corpus Christi Hooks	Texas League	64-76	7th	Houston Astros
2006	Corpus Christi Hooks	Texas League	76-63	3rd	Houston Astros	League Champs
2007	Corpus Christi Hooks	Texas League	67-73	6th	Houston Astros
2008	Round Rock Express	Pacific Coast League	64-79	13th	Houston Astros
2009	Houston Astros	National League	4-9	5th	Houston Astros		replaced Cecil Cooper (70-79) on September 21

Further Reading

• Brian McTaggart: "Astros coach Clark hit hard at the plate -- and in the ring", mlb.com, February 3, 2025. [1]

Related Sites

• BR Manager page
• BR Minors page