Bryan Donald Clark (born July 12, 1956 in Madera, California) is a former left-handed Major League Baseball pitcher who played from 1981 to 1987, and again in 1990 with the Seattle Mariners, Toronto Blue Jays, Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox. He attended Fresno Community College. He was 6'2", 185 pounds.
Drafted 226th overall by the Pirates in 1974, Clark proved pretty quickly in the minors that his control was very suspect. For example, in just his second year in the minors, he walked 138 batters in only 131 innings of work. Used mostly as a starter in the minors, he posted ERAs as high as 7.11 with a team in a season, and he walked over 100 batters four times. Even in his best season in the minors, one in which he went 14-5 with a 2.64 ERA, he still walked 112 batters in 167 innings of work.
Although his minor league statistics were not too impressive, Clark still managed to make his major league debut on April 11, 1981 at the age of 24 against the California Angels. Although he was technically a pitcher, he was used in a rather unorthodox way in his debut - the Mariners (who purchased him from the Pirates in 1978) used him as a pinch runner.
He spent the rest of his career trying to find his niche. He was used both as a starter and reliever throughout his career, with his best season being 1982, when he went 5-2 with a 2.75 ERA in 37 games, most of them in relief. This season included his only complete game shutout in his career, on September 25, 1982, against the Blue Jays. He gave up six hits, walked one, and struck out two.
In 1983, he was traded from the Mariners to the Blue Jays for Barry Bonnell. Perhaps a game on August 19, 1983, against the Cleveland Indians shows just how poor his control could be at times. In just 2.2 innings of work, he managed to walk seven batters.
In the end, his career never really panned out. He posted a 20-23 record with a 4.15 ERA in 516+ innings of work, walking 261 and striking out 259. He was sixth in the league in wild pitches in 1981 with seven, and fourth in the league in wild pitches in 1983 with 10.
He played his final game on May 30, 1990, with the Mariners, who had reacquired him in December 1989.
George Brett collected his 2000th hit off Clark.
Famous quotes containing the words bryan and/or clark:
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—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“I don’t go that fast in practice, because I need the excitement of the race, the adrenalin. The others might train more and be in better shape, but when I’m racing, I put winning before everything else. I don’t stop until the world gets gray and fuzzy around the edges.”
—Candi Clark (b. c. 1950)