Will Power

Cocky? Clark? That's hardly a strong enough word. The 6'1", 190-pound Clark not only believes he can hit any pitcher alive, he also believes he can hit him on the best day of the pitcher's life. Clark has the temperament of a misunderstood artist. "I'm a masher! Ain't I a masher?" he used to brag in his shrill, insistent way to his teammates on the 1984 Olympic team. They would roll their eyes and wish that he would shut up and hit.

But, of course, he was a masher. You couldn't deny it. He could hit the ball a ton—for average and for power. While with the Olympic team, Clark outshone a group of stars that included Mark McGwire, B.J. Surhoff and Barry Larkin, amassing 16 homers and 43 RBIs in 40 games. He had the sweetest swing that anyone had ever seen, an uppercut with a long, loopy follow-through that made it seem as if he were wielding a buggy whip instead of a 32-ounce bat.

The general manager of the Giants, Al Rosen, who was working for the Houston Astros at the time, remembers seeing the Olympic team play an exhibition in the Astrodome and thinking: "That son of a gun Clark is going to make some G.M. a lucky man for the next 20 years." Little did Rosen know that he would be that lucky G.M.

The remarkable thing is the better the pitcher or the tougher the situation, the better Clark hits. You could look it up. Last season he hit .431, nearly 100 points above his overall batting average, against the 10 pitchers in the National League with the lowest ERAs. Against lefties, the lefthanded-hitting Clark batted an astounding .450 with runners in scoring position.

And that doesn't count Clark's most memorable at bat of the year, the one that put the finishing touch on the best league championship series that any player has ever had, the one that Craig calls "one of the greatest at bats I've ever seen." It occurred in the eighth inning of Game 5 against the Chicago Cubs' fireballing lefthanded closer, Mitch Williams, a.k.a. Wild Thing.

It was a classic matchup, and while Williams warmed up, Clark studied him carefully from the on-deck circle. In Game 1, at Wrigley Field, Clark had picked up a critical piece of information by studying another Cub pitcher from that vantage point. It was the fourth inning and the bases were full. Clark kept his eye on Chicago manager Don Zimmer as he came out to talk to his starting pitcher, Greg Maddux. Most people thought Zimmer was going to yank Maddux and bring in lefthander Paul Assenmacher. Instead, he told Maddux how he wanted him to pitch to Clark.

"I can read Maddux's lips right over the top of Zimmer's head," recalls Clark. "He's facing me and repeats, 'Fastball in.' They'd been pitching me outside. So that's what I'm looking for."

Clark found it, mashing a grand slam to right that effectively put Game 1—in which he had two homers and six RBIs—out of reach. That, of course, was only the beginning. Clark set league records for a five-game series with 13 hits, eight runs, 24 total bases, a .650 average and a 1.200 slugging percentage.

But it was his final at bat of that series, against Williams in Candlestick Park, that people best remember, the one that branded an image of Clark's unique style on the national consciousness. The bases, again, were full, with two outs and the score 1-1. Watching Williams loosen up, Mitchell said to Clark, "You know he won't throw you a hook."

Clark knew that, all right. He keeps videotapes of all his at bats in his home, both the good ones and the bad ones. They are divided by team and by pitcher, so that before each series Clark can study how various staffs like to pitch him. The man leaves nothing to chance. "Pitchers act differently when they get in a bind," he says. "Ninety times out of a hundred, they'll stick with their strengths, and if you know what their strength is, you can look for it."