Clark to Join Dodgers

Jack Clark and Jim Colborn have emerged as the leading candidates to become the hitting and pitching coaches under new Dodger Manager Jim Tracy, sources said Monday night. Details were still being finalized, but an announcement that each has agreed to a two-year contract could be made today, the sources said.

Clark, who will be replacing Rick Down, served last year as the hitting coach for the Dodgers’ Class-A affiliate at San Bernardino. He spent 18 years in the majors, retiring after the 1992 season with a .267 career average and 340 home runs, a total that does not include one of the most infamous homers in Dodger history.

Clark’s three-run homer against Tom Niedenfuer in the ninth inning of Game 6 of the 1985 National League championship series won the pennant for the St. Louis Cardinals and left then-Dodger manager Tom Lasorda burdened with the question of whether he should have walked Clark intentionally with first base open.

Colborn, who is replacing Claude Osteen, won 20 games for the Milwaukee Brewers in 1973, pitched a no-hitter for the Kansas City Royals in 1977 and retired after a 10-year major league career with an 83-88 record.

He and Tracy became friends while working in the Chicago Cubs’ minor-league system, and for the last four years he has served as the Seattle Mariners’ director of Pacific Rim scouting. In that capacity, he was influential in the Mariners’ acquisition of relief pitcher Kazuhiro Sasaki, who won the American League’s rookie of the year award, as well as last week’s signing of Ichiro Suzuki, the seven-time Japanese batting champion.

Colborn, who lives in Ventura, was returning from Japan on Monday and could not be reached. The Dodgers are attempting to re-sign free-agent pitcher Darren Dreifort and otherwise strengthen their rotation this winter. Sources said they met with Arn Tellem, who represents free-agent pitcher Mike Mussina, over the weekend, met with pitcher Denny Neagle and his agent on Monday and are believed to have made a three-year offer to free-agent right-hander Rick Reed.

The club previously announced that Glenn Hoffman, John Shelby and Manny Mota would be retained on Tracy’s coaching staff and that Jim Riggleman had been hired as bench coach and Jim Lett as bullpen coach.