[Alsfastball] Great Scorer' calls up a darned good one

[Al Doran]

From: "Scott Stasik" <scottstasik at hotmail.com>
To: fastball at pmihrm.com
Subject: "Fat Jack" Clements
Date: Sat, 31 Jul 2004 10:04:27 -0400




'Great Scorer' calls up a darned good one

Thursday, July 22, 2004

The "Great Scorer" must have needed some help in keeping the book.

That's the only logical explanation for John D. Clements dying Wednesday at 
the age of 57.

Let's get something cleared up: John David Clements was his given name but, 
to all his softball buddies, he will forever be "Fat Jack."
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That's not a derogatory term. Fat Jack was, well Fat Jack, just the same as 
David Bedford is "Tuck."

Fat Jack didn't swing a bat and the only things he fielded were a few dumb 
questions from a sports writer, but he was the heart and soul of the 
greatest fastpitch softball team in Saginaw history, the Saginaw Bolters.

If you don't believe me, ask Tuck or ask Rick Maturen. They'll tell you how 
Fat Jack took care of all the details while they made softball history by 
winning a world championship.

My son John, who is a friend of Jack's brother Mark, asked me last night 
what Jack's title with the Bolters was. "It's complicated," I answered. I 
told John that I once saw an International Softball Congress yearbook. In 
the caption below the Bolters' team photo he was listed as the "team 
statistician."

I suppose that's a good starting point, but Fat Jack was so much more to 
the Bolters. It's easier to list the things he didn't do for the team. He 
didn't play, he didn't manage and he didn't sponsor the team. He did 
everything else.

He took care of all the other details. One story labeled him "a softball 
guru." I can't believe I actually wrote that!

Fat Jack would call me in the middle of winter and fill me on the 
off-season "transactions." Which player was going where. And even why. It 
made the weather seem almost warm.

In the summer he'd make sure we got the details about every game the 
Bolters played. If a couple of the stories could be called masterpieces, 
it's only because Jack provided all the paint.

Four years ago, when I was inducted into the Saginaw Bowling Hall of Fame, 
a huge gift basket arrived at my front door. The basket was from Jack and 
the Saginaw Bolters. The card read, "Congratulations and thanks for 
everything you did for us." Maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised. 
That's the kind of guy Jack Clements was.

I got his phone number in Ohio from Maturen and we must have talked for 
more than an hour. It was like old times as he filled me in on who was 
doing what. Jack, who was having great difficulty walking, was the traffic 
manager for a big company in Akron. He did most of his work via a home 
computer. We later e-mailed each other and he sent me a book written by his 
good friend, legendary New Zealand softball pitcher Kevin Herlihy.

I'm struck by the fact that Clements' funeral is just a couple weeks shy of 
the 25th anniversary of the Bolters' world championship.

The year was 1979 and the Bolters conquered the ISC World Tournament in 
Bakersfield, Calif. It might have been the single most important team 
performance in Saginaw sports history.

Really. I can't think of any other sports team from Saginaw which competed 
on a world stage and won.

When the tournament was over Jack and the Bolters came home and sat in the 
grandstand (the one nearest the beer tent) at the Amateur Softball 
Association's Men's National Tournament in Midland's Currie Stadium. They 
watched their rivals, Midland McArdle Pontiac-Cadillac, win the whole thing.

In those days the ISC and ASA went in different directions. The ISC was a 
tournament which allowed you to bring in anybody -- even a bunch of players 
who grew up at Hoyt Park and their star pitcher who was from New Zealand. 
The ASA limited its tournament to fulltime United States residents.

Bolters or McArdle's: Which was the better team? That's a question that 
still sparks a debate 25 years later. Jack would always point out that the 
Bolters beat McArdle's in their head-to-head series of games that summer 
before the tournaments. Maybe it's better that the two teams didn't play a 
seven-game series after the tournaments ended to decide who was No. 1. One 
team would have won but one team would have lost.

I'd like to think there is a heavenly softball field. One with the outfield 
grass as green as a sea of emeralds and freshly-chalked foul lines that go 
out as far as the eye can see.

Look, there's Fat Jack and Ralph Ward leaning their elbows on a silver 
chain-link fence. The sun is warm on their faces as they watch Ralph Minnis 
warm up. You can almost hear the sound of the ball thudding into the 
catcher's trapper mitt. Over by the golden backstop George Becker, the home 
plate umpire, calls out, "Let's go, batter up!"

John Pozenel is a sports copy editor for The Saginaw News. You may reach 
him by calling 776-9772,




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