It Comes Naturally for Clark

You go a long way toward knowing about Will Clark, the baseball player, if you begin with the fact that on his very first at-bat in the major leagues--in fact, on his very first swing--he hit a home run.

Off Nolan Ryan.

When you know that, it may be all you need to know about Will Clark.

If he’d retired the next day, it would still have been something to tell his grandchildren. But Will Clark only got better after that.

You talk to baseball men about Will Clark and this film comes over their eyes, their hands begin to shake and they get all choked up.

If you saw the Robert Redford character in the movie, “The Natural,” you know all about Will Clark. In a lot of ways, Roy Hobbs was Will Clark.

Will Clark with a bat in his hands is not exactly Rembrandt with a brush, but it could be Montana with a man open, Nicklaus with a 1-iron to the green, Becker at match point, Tyson going for the body.

You start a conversation around baseball people about Will Clark and, before you know it, the conversation veers around to Stan Musial, Ted Williams, Billy Williams, Al Kaline--those kinds of people, those kinds of comparisons. Will Clark’s name travels in the best of company.

The swing is as perfect for baseball as Sam Snead’s was for golf. “His tempo is the best of all the guys I ever saw swing a bat,” his manager, Roger Craig, observes. “He keeps his head on the ball. He never makes a jerky move, even when he’s fooled on a pitch.”

His batting coach, Dusty Baker, agrees. “He’s got a tension-free swing. He’s the most confident hitter you will ever see.”

Adds Craig: “He doesn’t think anybody can ever get him out. Even if he hits it back to the pitcher. He runs just as if he hit it off the fence.”

The word most frequently applied to Will Clark is intensity . Almost the first adjective the scouts came up with was intense .

“He plays nine innings every night.” Craig says. “A game is never over for Clark.”

The numbers for Will Clark are not overwhelming. A career .302 hitter, he is presently hovering around .285. Those numbers are hardly Musialian. But there is an asterisk after them.

I asked Will Clark about it in the dugout the other night--if he thought anyone would ever hit .400 in this game again. After all, it’s been a half-century since anyone did. “It will have to be someone like (Wade) Boggs or (Tony) Gwynn,” he shot back.

Why, because they are contact hitters, singles hitters, punch hitters?

The answer was surprising. “Not because of how they hit but where they hit,” Will Clark said.

You mean Fenway Park and Jack Murphy Stadium are hitters’ paradises? You want to know. He vigorously nods his head. “Compared to Candlestick, they are,” he says.

It is the considered opinion of Will Clark that Candlestick Park has ruined more batters’ averages than the split-fingered fastball. It costs you points on your average and home runs on your totals.

The idea is not new. Bill Madlock, when he was with the Chicago Cubs playing in Wrigley Field, won two batting championships--.354 in 1975, .339 in ’76. Traded to the Giants and Candlestick, his average dropped to .302 and .309. In the middle of the 1979 season, as he was hitting .261 in San Francisco, he was traded to Pittsburgh, where his batting average promptly shot up to .328. Then he won two more batting championships with the Pirates, at .341 in 1981 and .323 in ’83.

It is widely believed by his fans that Candlestick Park cost Willie Mays any chance to catch Babe Ruth’s--and later Henry Aaron’s--all-time home run record. The figures are a little bit muddied, but Mays hit 250 of his 660 lifetime homers before playing in Candlestick. He hit 14 after leaving, which means that Mays hit 250 home runs in seven seasons before coming to San Francisco and 396 home runs in 13 seasons at the ‘Stick. Mays never came close to a batting championship at Candlestick, although he won one at New York’s old Polo Grounds.

“Candlestick,” Will Clark says, “is very detrimental to a hitter. The ball you think you hit out suddenly dies at the warning track. I’m sure it could have cost Mays 10 home runs a year. And don’t forget, a home run is a hit.

“Not only that, but they keep the infield grass high at Candlestick. To help our pitching staff. You have to be a very special person to hit in Candlestick. You have to be ready to take unfairness.”

In the late 1950s, when the Giants and Dodgers were moving west, Musial, who played in hot and humid St. Louis, delivered himself of the opinion that the cooler climes of the West Coast, particularly San Francisco, could add years to Mays’ playing career. “Maybe so,” Will Clark notes, “but the reverse is also true. It can be so cold, you have to keep taking stretching exercises to stay loose and keep your stroke. The cold tightens you up, too. I prefer humidity.”

Does this mean Will Clark will opt for a field of dreams when his contract expires? Will he want to go somewhere that the wind doesn’t blow and the July Fahrenheits aren’t lower than the December ones? He shakes his head and says: “I’m very happy with the organization and the fans. Besides, it isn’t as if you could play ball in a vacuum.”

Will Clark’s statistics are not totally deformed by meteorology. Philosophy enters into it. He knows he could fatten his average by shortening his stroke, choking up on the bat handle, protecting the plate, rather than going up there with his sweeping 360-degree arc. He believes his role demands it and says: “The three-run homer makes up for a lot of mistakes. I’m not a pure power hitter. But I’m not a put-the-ball-in-play guy. I’m not a table-setter. They need me to drive in runs as well as score ‘em.” Clark scored 102 and drove in 109 in 1988, and scored 104 and drove in 111 in ’89. He had 91 runs scored and 95 driven in last year, and his numbers are 28 scored and a league-leading 53 driven in this year.

Whatever he does, no one wants to change Will Clark. He attacks the ball and he attacks the game. He’s the Natural, the competitor, the Will with the way. Candlestick Park is just another guy with good stuff you have to go up against. “I never mind hitting a guy’s best pitch,” says Will Clark .”In fact, I go up there looking for it.”