He Can Play in Anybody’s Lineup : Clairemont’s Versatile McDavid Tries His Talents at Baseball

Maybe the most telling fact about Ray McDavid, a first-year Clairemont High School baseball player, is that he’s a switch-hitter.

Of course.

The multitalented McDavid possesses that rare combination of versatility and excellence. Put a ball--or bat or any athletic implement--in his hands, and he’s likely to dominate any game.

After making first-team All-City Western League in football and basketball this year, McDavid is giving baseball a try. He has little experience, but that doesn’t seem to matter.

Through the Chieftains’ first 12 games, McDavid is hitting .439. This after giving up the sport a few years ago.

“He has such good instincts,” said Hugh McMillan, Clairemont coach. “He knows when to take the extra base, but he isn’t reckless. He looks real comfortable at the plate. He runs well. I’m high on the kid.”

All of McDavid’s coaches have similar comments about the junior, who is 6-feet 2-inches tall and weighs 165 pounds. He has, they say, innate athletic ability, a good work ethic and unlimited potential.

“I have a feeling he could pick up a bow and arrow and do fine. He’s an exceptional athlete,” said Hal Krupens, Clairemont football coach.

Greg Lee, the basketball coach, added: “It comes easily to him. I expect great things from him.”

McDavid’s first and primary love is basketball.

“I’ve played it the longest,” he said. “On weekends, I’ve got a schedule so that I play basketball for five hours a day on Saturday and Sunday. It’s become a habit. After baseball or football (practice), I go home and rest or eat and then go play basketball.”

All that work led to averages of 20 points and 8 rebounds per game this past season.

“He started playing varsity in the ninth grade,” Lee said. “My team was horrible, I saw he was a great athlete, and so I started him in every game.

“Without a doubt, basketball is his best sport. He’s very quick and very strong. But who’s to say in five years he wouldn’t be better in baseball?”

Seemingly without effort, McDavid can pick up a sport and become not just proficient but extraordinary.

In football, he had never played until the 10th grade but decided to give it a shot and ended up on the Clairemont varsity.

“Once I hit high school, I just wanted to keep my grades up and play basketball,” he said. “But some friends kept telling me to play football, so I did.”

This past season, though slowed by a hip pointer, he played wide receiver and was all-league as a defensive back.

“He has good speed and jumping ability,” Krupens said. “He makes a good wide-out, and he plays good defense.”

But football appears to be last on McDavid’s priority list.

“I don’t want to get broken,” he says with a laugh. “I was thinking about not playing football next year. But it was the same last year. I wasn’t going to play, but I did. I’m not sure.”

Said Krupens: “I’d like to have him back. I might make a sprint-out quarterback out of him.”

McDavid played baseball in a National City youth league several years ago, but after he broke an ankle sliding into home plate, he gave it up.

“I was all right,” he said, “but I was scared to slide. I wasn’t even thinking about baseball after I was 14.”

At least until this spring.

“I like playing baseball, but I never thought about it in high school until a couple of guys said, ‘Come on out and play. We need you.’ ”

Indeed. After his team finished second in the City Western League last season, McMillan lost many players to graduation and is rebuilding. McDavid stepped right into the starting lineup as center fielder and cleanup hitter.

But he isn’t playing simply because Clairemont is down a bit this year.

“He runs, has size and can hit with power,” McMillan said.

Speed is, perhaps, his greatest asset. Unless an opposing infielder makes a clean play, McDavid is likely to beat out anything hit on the ground. Once on base, he’s a good bet to steal or take an extra base.

Defensively, says McMillan, “he covers so much ground he’s able to make some remarkable catches.”

McDavid says he is inclined to continue with his baseball experiment.

“I think I’m an average baseball player,” he said. “I don’t know quite what I can do, but I’ll try. If I want to, I think I could do well.”

In college, McDavid probably will concentrate on basketball. Still just 16, he believes he’ll grow another inch or two. He says he already has a “shoebox full” of letters from college coaches.

“He’s very talented,” Lee said. “There is nothing keeping him from being a perfect Division I guard.”

Or, perhaps if he set his mind to it, a wide receiver, defensive back or center fielder.