Clear Awaits a Second Chance : Angels: Right-handed reliever, who missed last season after surgery on his elbow, believes he can make the roster.

Waiting a week or two or even three for the spring-training lockout to end may be a nuisance for most players, but it’s nothing for reliever Mark Clear, who already has waited nearly a year to salvage a career that began with great promise and seemed destined to end in agony.

The right-hander signed with the Angels as a free agent in January, 1989, but missed all of last season after undergoing reconstructive surgery on his right elbow.

The surgery ended his pain, but it prompted him to start wondering whether he might have to find another occupation. As co-owner of a nursery in Fullerton, Clear could have devoted his time to developing a green thumb. Instead, he plans to work on regaining his wicked curveball and the form he first displayed with the Angels in 1979--when he was the American League rookie pitcher of the year--and in twice earning All-Star recognition.

Although the lockout might hurt marginal players or youngsters vying for major league jobs because they will have less time to be noticed by managers and coaches, Clear believes he won’t suffer because he’s a known quantity. And the Los Angeles native knows he’s not ready to call it quits.

“I’m a lot better baseball player than nurseryman,” he said by telephone from his off-season home in Olathe, Kan. “In my mind, I feel if I go down there throwing like I have the last month or two, I shouldn’t have any problem. Mine is a different situation than a rookie, who needs a little more exposure. It’s going to hurt everybody if it goes another month, that’s for sure. Then you’d have to go to spring training and the manager would pick his guys in two, three days. He’s going to carry 10 pitchers and it comes down to 12 or 13.

“I know the Angels have a lot of pitching, but I can’t worry about that. When you go to spring training, there’s a lot of things you can’t control. I can’t worry, ‘What are they going to do with this guy and that guy?’ I’m worried only about Mark Clear. Mentally and physically I feel ready and I’m confident in my ability. I want to play and I feel like I’m a big-league pitcher.”

He has a big-league contract, having impressed pitching coach Marcel Lachemann and the Angels enough in winter workouts to win a one-year agreement. Clear’s salary will be minimal, but he can supplement it by satisfying bonus clauses based on appearances and innings pitched.

“He was way ahead of where anybody expected him to be, given the seriousness of the operation he had,” Lachemann said. “He’s in better shape than he’s ever been and he was throwing the ball 85% to 90% of how he used to. His curveball was very good. Locating his fastball and things like that are going to take some time.

“He’s the kind of guy who’s capable of striking out left-handed hitters and right-handed hitters. He’s got a good chance of making the ballclub. Our intent is going to be to go with the 11 best pitchers we have, not the ones with the biggest salaries or anything like that.”

That he has any chance at all to join a staff whose earned-run average last season was second best in the AL is something of a miracle. Clear celebrates the wonder of his recovery every day, and on Wednesday he will celebrate the first anniversary of the surgery.

“My last two years in Milwaukee, I was in pain almost all the time and I was taking cortisone and anti-inflammatory medication,” he said. “I’m not really old--I’m 33 now--but I felt old at the time because I’d been through so much pain the previous years. I had the surgery and I started working out, but I didn’t rush it. . . . It was real weird, not playing. At first I didn’t worry about it because I knew I physically couldn’t play, but still, it was the first time in I couldn’t hardly remember how long that I wasn’t playing ball.

“I went real slow with my rehab. I didn’t think about playing again until November, when I started playing catch with friends and the girls at the rehab center. Around December, I started feeling pretty good and I went out there (to Anaheim Stadium) for eight or nine workouts. It was good for me to go out there because (Lachemann) corrected a couple of things I was doing wrong, my mechanics. But pitching is like riding a bike. You don’t forget how.”

Riding a bike is one of the hobbies Clear took up during his rehabilitation, and he became proficient enough to complete a 100-mile race in September in less than five hours. He’s no challenger to Greg LeMond, but he does believe the Angels will challenge the defending World Series champion Athletics this season.

“We have a good club and we have an excellent chance of winning (the AL West). That’s what makes it fun, winning,” he said. “You could go to a last-place club and you personally could win but you wouldn’t be satisfied. When I first came up with California, we won 88 games and won the division by a pretty good margin (three games). The East was always the stronger division but now it seems reversed. Over there, if you win 90 you have a chance to win the division. Over here, you win 90 and you’re out of luck, and winning 90 means you’ve had a hell of a year.

“I could have gone with some other clubs, but I feel I have a good chance to make this club. If I go out and throw like I’m capable of throwing, I’ll have no problem making this club. I’ve worked real hard the last year and really intensely the last six months. It’s just a matter of me going out and doing it.”