Here’s a Man Who Knows Himself Well

Don’t worry about Will Clark, thank you. He’s all right, Jack. If you don’t think so, just ask him.

Worry about the pitchers. The rest of the league.

You used to think that other Clark in San Francisco--Jack--knew his own mind? He was downright wishy-washy compared to Will.

Ring Lardner would have loved Will Clark. Part-You-Know-Me-Al, part-Elmer-the-Great, but there’s no Alibi Ike in Will Clark. Will Clark is not given to self-doubts.

And, why should you when you hit the first pitch you ever saw in the big leagues for a home run? Off Nolan Ryan, no less. What’s tough about this game, right?

Will Clark has since hit the occasional pop-up like any other player, but Will Clark, it so happens, is the best player on the San Francisco Giants. He’s one of the best players in the game. In an era that’s a bull market for first basemen--Keith Hernandez, Andres Galarraga, Glenn Davis, Don Mattingly, Mark McGwire, Eddie Murray, Kent Hrbek, Joe Carter, Wally Joyner--none of them has any brighter future than William Nuschler Clark Jr.

If any of this surprises young Will Clark, he doesn’t show it.

Nobody hits the first major league pitch he ever sees for a home run. His knees are knocking too much. No one tees off on the first Nolan Ryan fastball ever thrown to him. He’s supposed to stand there and whistle.

Not Will Clark. He pounces on a fastball like a hawk on a chicken. You throw him a fastball and duck.

He hit the first pitch ever thrown to him in professional baseball for a home run, too. That was for Fresno against Visalia in 1985.

Usually, when a guy has been around a little less than two years in the big leagues, there’s a certain diffidence about him, a tentativeness. He defers to older teammates. He accepts umpires’ decisions. He may even be expected to call everybody “Mister” and not make waves.

Will Clark doesn’t care if he starts typhoons. Will Clark doesn’t show up with his hat in his hand, but with his bat. He treats life as if it might be a first-pitch fastball. He lives like he plays, aggressively, determinedly, confidently. If he sees anything difficult about hitting major league pitching, it doesn’t show. He has the bold eyes of a guy who knows he has a loaded shotgun pointed at your ribs, making sure the deal is honest.

He’s only 24 years old, but he spent only 65 games in the minor leagues. He could have come to the majors years before he did. But he didn’t want to. And Will Clark doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to.

“Kansas City could have had me,” he tells you, “but they didn’t want to pay for my college education. I didn’t want to go right to the big leagues. I wanted to grow.”

Kansas City will rue not letting him because, by the time the San Francisco Giants got him, they would have been glad to pay his way through the Sorbonne.

Actually, Clark, a native of New Orleans, opted for Mississippi State University, where he became the best collegiate ballplayer the area has ever seen--and maybe the rest of the country as well.

Clark hit .386 with 28 home runs and 93 runs batted in in 61 games one year. He hit .420 with 25 home runs and 77 RBIs in 65 games the next season. He played with future major leaguers such as Rafael Palmeiro (Chicago Cubs) and Bobby Thigpen (Chicago White Sox). Selected to the 1984 U.S. Olympic team, he hit .393 with 13 home runs and 35 RBIs in the 35-game pre-Olympic tour. And in the Games, on a squad that had McGwire, Chris Gwynn, Cory Snyder, to name a few, he was a superstar with a .429 batting average, 3 homers and 9 RBIs in 5 games.

There isn’t any real reason why young Will Clark should be humble or modest. So he isn’t.

Will Clark hit 35 home runs and batted .308 last season. Only six other Giants in the team’s history, New York and San Francisco, have done that--hit better than .300 and more than 30 homers in a season. Will’s name is on a list with Mel Ott, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda and Johnny Mize, no less, not to mention Walker Cooper.

Clark sat in a dugout in Dodger Stadium the other night and reflected on his career. Does he ever try to hit home runs, someone wanted to know? “Never. I try to hit the ball in the air some place. I try for line drives. Long line drives.”

So, then, he doesn’t sometimes try to uppercut the ball? “I uppercut the ball all the time. I have a natural uppercut swing,” he says in a where-have-you-been voice.

Isn’t he glad to be left-handed in Candlestick where the prevailing wind blows in from left field? “I hit home runs to left field, too,” he sniffs. Does he find big league pitching that easy to hit? “Big league pitching is never easy to hit,” he tells you sternly. “You have to work at it.”

That night, he got his manager kicked out of the game over a called third strike in the ninth inning. Will thinks the best way to tell a strike is if he hits it for a homer. A few weeks before, he goaded the normally placid Ozzie Smith into bouncing a punch off his helmet.

Will Clark doesn’t apologize for being Will Clark. He can’t help it if he’s good.