Will Clark

Did You Know?

• Clark was selected by the Kansas City Royals in the fourth round of the 1982 MLB draft but chose not to sign.
• His daughter Ella is the reigning Miss Louisiana USA and will compete at Miss USA 2026.
• In 1999, Clark's wife Lisa had open heart surgery to address a hole that had been undiagnosed since birth.

College career

Clark played college baseball for the Mississippi State Bulldogs. In 1983, he played summer baseball for the Cotuit Kettleers of the Cape Cod Baseball League, where he was a league all-star and batted .367; he was inducted into the CCBL Hall of Fame in 2004. At the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, he led the U.S. team in batting average (.429), hits (9), runs batted in (8), and tied for the team lead in home runs (3). The Sporting News named him an All-American, and he won the Golden Spikes Award as the best amateur baseball player in the country. The Bulldogs finished fourth at the 1985 College World Series, and Clark was named to the all-tournament team.

Professional career

Will Clark was taken second overall by the San Francisco Giants in the 1985 MLB draft after his junior year at Mississippi State, and he spent that summer with Fresno in the Class A California League. On April 8, 1986, he stepped up for his first big-league plate appearance and launched a home run on his very first swing, off Nolan Ryan. A few days later, he also went deep in his first home game at Candlestick Park. An elbow injury sidelined him for 47 games during his rookie season, but he still hit .287 and finished fifth in NL Rookie of the Year voting. The next year, his first full season, he batted .308. From 1988 through 1992, he was voted the starting first baseman for the NL All-Star team each year. In one of those seasons, he became the first Giant since Bobby Murcer to drive in 90 or more runs in back-to-back years. Another season saw him hit .333, losing the batting title to Tony Gwynn on the final day, with 111 RBIs, and he placed second in NL MVP voting behind teammate Kevin Mitchell. In the 1989 NLCS against the Chicago Cubs, Clark hit a solo homer in Game 1. Later in that game, he watched Cubs catcher Rick Wrona and pitcher Greg Maddux talk on the mound, read Maddux’s lips saying “fastball high, inside,” and crushed the first pitch for a grand slam. In Game 5, with the score tied 1-1 in the eighth, he singled to center to drive in two runs, sending the Giants to the World Series. He hit .650 with two homers in the series and was named NLCS MVP. In the World Series, the Giants were swept by the Oakland Athletics; Clark batted .250 with no RBIs while battling tonsillitis.

Legacy

Clark has been honored by multiple Halls of Fame, including the College Baseball Hall of Fame, the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame (2004), the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame (2007), and the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame (2008). He finished his career with 284 home runs, 1,205 RBIs, a .303 average, and an .881 OPS. In the 2006 Hall of Fame vote, he received 23 ballots (4.4%), falling short of the 5% needed to remain eligible. He holds the record for most home runs off Nolan Ryan, with six. The San Francisco Giants retired his number 22 on July 30, 2022, after a ceremony originally scheduled for 2020 was delayed by the pandemic.