Jack Clark
The next player on this list is one of the over the hill free agents I remember as a kid. Jack Clark had been a really good player for the Giants and Cardinals when I was growing up in the 1980s so when he signed with the Red Sox as a free agent in 1991, I was really excited. The four-time All-Star was going to be their DH and I was looking forward to seeing lots of home runs hit out of Fenway Park.
Clark signed with the Red Sox for three years and was pretty good in 1991, hitting 28 home runs to go along with a .249 average and 87 RBI in 140 games. For a guy who was thirty-six years old at the time, those weren’t bad numbers. Unfortunately, his 1992 season was a disaster. He only hit five home runs and drove in 33 runs while hitting a dreadful .210 in 81 games.
Before spring training in 1993, the Red Sox waived Clark and ended his time with the team. He ended up signing with the Montreal Expos but never played a game for them and retired, thus ending his eighteen-year career with those final two seasons in Boston.
For years afterward, Clark’s time in Boston was routinely pointed to as an example of the Red Sox bringing in yet another old, broken down player.