This is the original radio broadcast by
Bill Mercer and
Dick Risenhoover of
David Clyde's June 27,
1973 major league debut before the first sellout crowd with the
Texas Rangers.
Billed as the next
Sandy Koufax,
Clyde had a stellar high school career at
Westchester High School. Twenty days after pitching his last high school game, Clyde won his first ever
Major League start before over 35,000 fans in
Arlington Stadium, the first sellout in stadium history. After a poor start in which he walked the first two batters he faced, he settled down, pitched five innings, giving up only one hit (a home run to
Mike Adams) while striking out eight batters in a 4--3 victory over the
Minnesota Twins. Clyde later called it his most memorable game in his Major League career.
Clyde then pitched well in his second start against the
Chicago White Sox, pitching six innings before a blister in his finger forced him out of the game. However with his performance in the two starts, the
Rangers dropped all plans to send him to the minors. The youngest player to play in a major league game in 1973, Clyde pitched a total of eighteen games (all starts) that season, finishing with a record of 4--8, with a 5
.01 earned run average (
ERA). Questioned about the
difference between high school or professional baseball, Clyde stated that
MLB hitters "see the ball better, thus they make contact more often".
Named a "sensation", "phenomenon", or other hyped up words in his first two years in the league, most of
Clyde's troubles were attributed to the rush to get him into the majors before he was ready. This was due to the fact the Rangers finances were weak at the time.
The Rangers averaged a near-capacity crowd in Clyde's six home starts, but 6,000 fans for the other 75 home dates. Prior to Clyde's debut, the highest crowd in Rangers history was 24,000.
At the end of the 1973 season, Clyde drew nearly a third of all fans in attendance for Rangers home games throughout the year. According to journalist
Randy Galloway, Clyde put baseball on the map in
Dallas, as the city started to get interested on the sport, even after Clyde's inconsistency forced him out of the league.
Longtime Rangers coach
Jackie Moore agreed with
Galloway, stating that Clyde and Corbett buying the team "went a long way toward saving the franchise". Using Clyde success of bringing attendance up as an example,
Short sold the Rangers to
Brad Corbett in
1974, which prevented the
American League from taking over the team, thus potentially saving the franchise.
Clyde's unsuccessful career made him the "poster-boy" for bringing up young players. In his autobiography
White Rat his first big league manager, future
Baseball Hall of Famer Whitey Herzog stated that he was often forced to leave Clyde in the game much longer than usual because fans wanted to see the 18-year-old "phenom" pitch. It led to Clyde's arm burning out at an early age,
Herzog argued. In a
2003 interview with
The New York Times, Herzog criticized
Bob Short, stating that "(Short) sure wasn't going to send him down without getting some people in the ballpark to see him.
The kid should have gone to the minors after two starts." He also said that Clyde "was one of the best young left-handed pitchers
I've ever seen. "Former teammate
Tom Grieve said that keeping Clyde in the roster was the "dumbest thing you could ever do to a high school pitcher."
In a 2003 interview with the
Associated Press, Clyde looked back on his career, recognizing that he was rushed too early, calling his career "a classic case not to handle a young talent" and stating that his case had a "black side" to it but that he made a contribution to the sport.
- published: 11 Oct 2013
- views: 3414