East Providence's Clark & Sons celebrates 50 years of softball success

Namesake to be inducted in inaugural RIASA Hall of Fame, team wins senior title

By Mike Rego
Posted 9/22/18

EAST PROVIDENCE — It will have been quite the year for city resident Bobby Clark come November when he is among the first inductees into the newly-created Rhode Island American Softball Association …

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East Providence's Clark & Sons celebrates 50 years of softball success

Namesake to be inducted in inaugural RIASA Hall of Fame, team wins senior title

Posted

EAST PROVIDENCE — It will have been quite the year for city resident Bobby Clark come November when he is among the first inductees into the newly-created Rhode Island American Softball Association Hall of Fame.

In 2018, not only will Mr. Clark be rightly included among the memorable names in the sport locally, but he will have done so after the most recent incarnation of “Clark & Sons” won another championship and did it in his 50th season of sponsorship.

Mr. Clark, whose crowning achievement came when his 1979 team captured the men’s ASA national championship, will be joined in the inaugural RIASA Hall of Fame by another East Providence legend, the late Harry Mutter. Mr. Mutter had a prolific men’s softball career, hitting over 1,200 home runs during his time playing for the likes of Bovi’s Tavern, The Paddy Wagon and Conti Brothers.

“I was shocked and surprised, honored, humbled,” Mr. Clark said of his latest honor. He was previously inducted into the New England Softball Hall of Fame. “For them to even mention my name in the same breath as Harry Mutter and couple of these other guys is an honor in itself, never mind getting elected myself.”

“Clark’s” has been a staple of leagues in city and throughout Rhode Island for five decades. The 1979 team including names familiar to many East Providence residents like Mike Roe, Chucky Manz, Johnny Johnson, Bobby Balkum, Barry Blumsted, among others achieved the greatest heights of all Clark & Sons sides, but the name has been synonymous with softball success for five decades now.

“I could never thank all of the players over the years. There’s been hundreds of them,” Mr. Clark said.

At 81, Mr. Clark only recently, himself, took off the uniform. He played for his eponymous squad in the Rhode Island Men’s Over-50 Softball League until he was 75. The 2018 team only just won the RIMSL Over-50 Division 2 title this summer.

“Hopefully, I won’t have to make any speeches, but I want to thank Domenic Pontarelli. He put this last team together from scratch all by himself so we could have our 50th anniversary and we ended up winning the whole league,” Mr. Clark added.

Of why he remains part of the sport, he concluded, “Because you want to win. It’s that urge to compete and win.”

Mr. Pontarelli, a city native, joined the Over-50 Clark’s in 2010. That team won two championships before abruptly calling it quits in 2014, not the fitting end he thought it deserved.

“I’ve lived in East Providence all my life and I realized what Clark & Sons means, playing on Clark’s is an honor. When the team broke up in 2014 it just didn’t sit with me right, that Clark & Sons didn’t have a team,” Mr. Pontarelli said.

He explained he was motivated to have another version of Clark’s to properly pay tribute to the man whose name has been on the front of the jersey for so many years.

“I contacted Bobby in January asking if we could put the team back together. I knew that it was important that Bobby got that 50th year. And he said, ‘Go right ahead.’ So I went to the manager’s meeting in January with $100 and no roster. With the $100 we got in the league, then I put it out on Facebook we needed players. And I asked Billy Case to manage the team. By March, we had eight players. We still needed to have 14 players on the roster. We finally did that.

“Then we placed fourth during the season. In the first weekend of the playoffs we played the first seed. We beat them two games. In the next week, we played the second seed. We won two games. So played the first and second seed, beat them four games and won the state championship.”

Both Mr. Clark and Mr. Pontarelli made special mention of Mr. Case, who sadly passed away from cancer just before the start of the 2018 playoffs.

“It was an honor to do that and bring back Clark & Sons softball,” Mr. Pontarelli added. “I think it’s an East Providence staple. It was good to have it back and we’re looking forward to having many more years of Clark & Sons softball. And I want to thank Bobby Clark for allowing us to do that.”

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