ARLINGTON, Texas — On Tuesday night at Globe Life Field, the Texas Rangers honored David Clyde on the 50th anniversary of his big league start.
In a few months, Clyde's senior class from Westchester High School will hold their 50th reunion celebration.
If that sounds wrong to you ... well, it kind of should.
David Clyde was maybe the best high school pitcher ever in the state of Texas. He had nine no-hitters in his high school career, two of them came on back-to-back days. In Sports Illustrated that year, they wrote that since he threw so hard, if he were the "David" to have faced Goliath, he wouldn't have needed the sling.
Clyde was legendary.
So, the Rangers drafted him 1st overall, and then put him on a Major League mound 12 days after he played his final high school game.
It worked on some level.
Nearly 36,000 people came to watch – five times what the struggling Rangers were averaging that year. Clyde began his career with an eight-strikeout performance, giving up just one run. Think about that for a second: an 18-year-old kid, two weeks removed from a high school state playoff start ... striking out eight big leaguers.
But the fallout was significant. A kid who should've gone to the minors, honestly, for years ... didn't. And what should've been a legendary career ... wasn't. Because the Rangers rushed a phenom so they could make money.
Clyde says he could have been the next Sandy Koufax if he had gone to a different organization that cultivated him properly. And there's plenty of baseball experts who agree with him.
But credit to Clyde – he was there last night with a smile, not feeling jilted or letting the "what-if's" consume him. Instead, he laughed, celebrated, and soaked in a night dedicated to him.
He may not have had the hall of fame career he was destined for, but as he said Tuesday, he proved that baseball could be viable here in North Texas.
And Rangers fans have every reason to be thankful to David Clyde for that.
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