David Clyde
| David Clyde | |||
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| Pitcher | |||
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Born: April 22, 1955 Kansas City, Kansas |
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| MLB debut | |||
| June 27, 1973, for the Texas Rangers | |||
| Last MLB appearance | |||
| August 7, 1979, for the Cleveland Indians | |||
| MLB statistics | |||
| Win–loss record | 18–33 | ||
| Earned run average | 4.63 | ||
| Strikeouts | 228 | ||
| Teams | |||
| Career highlights and awards | |||
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David Eugene Clyde (born April 22, 1955 in Kansas City, Kansas) is a former left-handed Major League Baseball pitcher who played for five seasons with the Texas Rangers (1973–1975) and Cleveland Indians (1978–1979). He is noted for his once promising baseball career, which ended at age 26 because of arm and shoulder injuries.
Billed as the next Sandy Koufax, Clyde had a stellar high school career at Westchester High School. He was drafted with the first overall pick in the 1973 Major League Baseball draft. The Rangers planned to have Clyde pitch his first two professional games in the major leagues before moving him down to the minor leagues, but Rangers owner Bob Short decided to keep him in the roster for monetary purposes, where he had a 5.01 earned run average in 18 starts. Journalists criticized the Rangers for promoting Clyde too soon, and after an uneventful 1974 campaign, he developed shoulder trouble and was sent down to the minor leagues in 1975, where he pitched three seasons. He was traded to the Cleveland Indians in 1978, and played two seasons before being demoted. Clyde attempted to make a comeback with the Houston Astros but was unsuccessful.
Clyde's career made him the "poster-boy" for bringing up young players prematurely and dealing with arm injuries. He was named by journalist Randy Galloway as among the worst cases of "mishandling" a young player in baseball history. He is considered by many as a savior of the Texas Rangers franchise because of the significant attendance boost that Clyde's hype brought to the team, preventing it from a possible bankruptcy or American League takeover.
The son of a telephone executive, Clyde was born in Kansas City, Kansas, the oldest of four brothers. After living for a time in New Jersey, his family moved to Houston, Texas in 1969. He played football and baseball at Westchester High School in Houston where he became known as a perfectionist and was an excellent student. During his senior year at Westchester, Clyde had a stellar record of 18–0, giving up only three earned runs in 148 innings pitched, while pitching five no-hitters and setting 14 national high school records. His dominance at the high school level attracted the attention of many MLB team scouts, many of whom billed Clyde as the "next Sandy Koufax" and others called him the "best pitching prospect they had ever seen".
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