Clearly, He’s an Unsung Angel Coach : Bob Clear Keeps His Profile Low in Bullpen for the Past 10 Years

As the reporter approaches, Angel bullpen coach Bob Clear prepares to give way.

Clear: “Who you looking for?”

Reporter: “You . . . uh, you are Bob Clear, aren’t you?”

Clear’s eyes squint. In 42 years of professional baseball, 32 in the minor leagues, he has seen just about all the game can offer.

In 1957, Clear and the team he managed from Douglas, Ariz., were stranded in that portion of land between Las Vegas and Phoenix known as nowhere and hot when the team station wagons--not buses--broke down.

Clear: “You want WHO?”

Reporter: “Uh, I’m looking for Bob Clear, I was told that was you.”

Clear confirms, his face lost in a blank stare as he tries to formulate why someone would want to play a practical joke on him.

Reporters just don’t do stories on bullpen coaches. It’s not exactly one of your high risk/high profile/high interest job.

Consider the lot of a bullpen coach. He sits, sits, sits, answers the phone, sits, sits . . .

“That’s pretty much all there is to do out there,” Clear says. “You can’t really see the game, you’re just waiting around.”

But Wednesday was notable because it was Clear’s 10th anniversary as the Angel bullpen coach.

OK, so it’s not exactly going to draw the fans in the way, oh, Insulated Picnic Bag Night would. But it meant enough to Angel coaches and players that they presented Clear with a painting by his favorite artist, Beverly Doolittle.

It was all very nice, and then first base coach Bobby Knoop had to go and spoil it all by saying something nice.

“He got up and made some speech about me,” Clear says. “I wish he wouldn’t have. You always feel uncomfortable when your friends say nice things about you.”

Understand that Bob Clear is one of these individuals who never went in much for sentiment. His face is weather beaten and creased. When he speaks it’s with a slow growl. He’s rough and he’s gruff and he loves baseball.

When he’s out in the bullpen he’s usually talking about the game with anyone who will lend an ear. Meet Ricky Smith, bullpen catcher. “I’ve learned more about baseball from him than I can tell,” Smith said. “He’ll tell you about pitchers and hitters. He knows all there is to know.”

Forty-two years will do that for a guy’s knowledge on a subject. In that time, Clear has worked on just about every level in every capacity imaginable.

“I’ve seen just about every thing,” Clear says. “In just about every way you can see it.”

He’s seen it all but as a major league player.

In 1955, his 12th as a minor leaguer, he was invited to spring training by the St. Louis Cardinals. Seems they wanted to look at the 27-year old kid who had won 20 games the season before. But a young man’s fancy turned to folly when he pitched exactly no innings that spring.

“It was disappointing but it didn’t change the way I feel about the game,” he said. “I love baseball. There’s never been anything else I wanted to do.”

So he continues supervising the Angel bullpen. There was the time last season when all the guys spit gum on the wall--”Had to take it off with a steam cleaner,” reliever Donnie Moore said proudly.

Then there’s all those nutty times the guys sit around and spit on each others’ shoes. Well, boys will be boys.

“They’re actually pretty serious out there,” Clear said. “They might kid around when we’re up to bat, but they all get pretty quiet when they’re studying the other team’s hitters.”

And no matter how Clear plays down his role with the team, he takes it very serious too. He pitches batting practice and is responsible to make sure young pitchers warm up correctly.

“Everyone’s got to do their part,” he said.

Even if it takes 32 years to land the part.