Lakeland, Fla. — This guy with long blonde locks and a black headband swatting baseballs Tuesday morning on TigerTown’s back lots hardly resembled a rookie.
Especially when he stepped to the plate.
Nice set-up, with his left-handed bat waggling as he leaned on his back leg, knee flexed. Fast path through the ball. Loud line drives. A ball or two that soared beyond the right-center field fence and toward Lake Parker.
Max Clark’s morning workout was smooth, both in his and in his bosses’ view, a day after he signed a $7.7-million Tigers contract befitting the hottest 18-year-old talent on a Detroit farm that likely got heavy help from last week’s MLB Draft.
“Impressive BP,” Ryan Garko, the Tigers’ head of player development, said with a nod and tight smile about Clark’s hitting cameo.
Clark also was grinning afterward, even after a 90-degree morning had reminded him that professional baseball’s glamor can have a head-on collision with Florida’s summer sauna.
“Nothing better,” said Clark, an amiable young man who looks even bigger than his listed 6-foot-1, 190 pounds. “Yesterday (Monday) was a little rough.
“But, I’m loving it. It’s really great to sit in the dorms with the guys, get introduced and acclimated to everybody.
“And this (TigerTown) complex is insane. They don’t have baseball fields like this in Indiana. The batting cages, the layers of everything.”
This all had happened so rapidly, Clark agreed, as he took a break following his hitting session, against a batting machine, and as part of a group that included others from last week’s Tigers draft class: Max Anderson (second-round pick), Bennett Lee (sixth), John Peck (seventh), and Cole Turney (undrafted free agent).
“It’s unreal,” he said. “You pack up your things at Franklin, Indiana, and you move to Lakeland, Florida, in a week, and you literally are a new person with a new life.”
Nine days earlier, Clark was back home in Franklin, waiting on that night’s draft, not yet sure to what MLB team and town, in a few hours, he would be headed a month after finishing high school.
Three picks into the evening of July 9, he was a Tigers pledge. Detroit had decided a hitter and center fielder with Clark’s extraordinary two-way talents (28 games, .646 batting average, 52 walks, five strikeouts) would become the first player chosen under new front-office chief Scott Harris.
Contract details would need a few days to shake out, which was helpful. Clark had a date in Los Angeles: at last week’s ESPN Espy Awards, where he got his plaque as 2023 Gatorade Best Player of the Year — an awesome honor in that it spans all high-school sports.
He got home last Thursday, then Sunday hopped aboard a flight that delivered him to Lakeland ahead of Monday’s final drying of the contract ink — and his first formal moments in Tigers togs.
“Yesterday was rough,” Clark conceded, talking about his first hours Monday in Florida’s steam-bath. “It was hard for me to get acclimated.
“I wasn’t very hydrated. I tried hard to catch my breath. Today was a lot better. I feel a lot better about it.”
In fact, he and his buddies had just beaten Tuesday’s weather. Thunder was beginning to sound west of TigerTown as the lads finished their morning batting practice. Ten minutes later, as Clark sat talking on an observation deck atop TigerTown’s four backfields, a monsoon moved through.
Clark understands there’s a new climatic routine to match a new baseball culture.
“One minute, it’s 98,” he said, half-closing his eyes to the slop a sudden breeze was blowing onto the deck. “Next minute, it’s 78 and rainin’.”
First impressions
What will be his Tigers timetable? That’s easier to answer in the short term than with any sense for when a player as gifted as Clark — bat, speed, glove — could conceivably crash his way to Comerica Park.
He will debut shortly, probably next week in Florida Complex League games reserved for MLB teams’ hatchlings.
If all goes well there, he can skip from the back tracts a few hundred yards to Publix Field/Marchant Stadium, home field for the low-A Lakeland Flying Tigers.
Garko isn’t hinting at anything firm. These summer weeks are more of an orientation for young players, especially those who barely have said goodbye to their families and high-school friends.
That, in fact, was Clark’s, job last week: hugging his mom (a retired special-education teacher), father (retired), and stepdad (natural-gas delivery driver). Bidding farewell to his Franklin High teammates and buddies, and to a town that has been his lifelong home.
Thursday he will fly to Detroit for a Friday media introduction at Comerica Park. Detroit also will allow for a reunion with his three-year girlfriend, Kayli Farmer, who plays soccer at the University of Dayton.
Oh, and another Detroit delight awaits:
“I can’t wait to get up there and eat,” said Clark, who got his first taste of Detroit last month when the Tigers worked him out at Comerica Park. “The food was unreal! There was a Mexican place up there — can’t remember the name of it — just phenomenal.”
Food, it seems, has been one of the joys discovered during these first days in the TigerTown dorm.
“I had salmon yesterday that was phenomenal,” Clark said, repeating one of his favorite superlatives.
And yet, to hear him talk, this whole new realm known as TigerTown and professional baseball has been, well, phenomenal.
“It’s above and beyond anything I thought heading into pro ball,” said Clark, who, along with all the checked-in draftees, will be living at the TigerTown dorm this summer.
Dorm quarters help facilitate those morning practices, as well as a steady stream of meetings with Tigers staffers targeted for every aspect of professional baseball life: on-the-field matters, off-the-field realities, melding with teammates and cultures, emotional and psychological challenges, obstacles and boundaries.
“All the coaches, the personnel, they’re helping me get acclimated to a new life,” Clark said. “You know you’ve got to be on your game every day. Be the guy who gives 100%.
“It was difficult yesterday,” he said, speaking of those first hours as a professional, “but today has been a lot better. It felt fresh. This clean eating. Living and playing baseball.”
Appreciating the past
He has been soaking in Tigers history, knowing also that Lakeland and the Tigers have the longest partnership between one team and one town of any MLB club.
“Fetzer Hall and the pictures hung up on the walls,” Clark said, a touch of awe in his voice. “It would be cool to be part of some of the greats who are there. I’ve been trying to learn as much as I can about Detroit and the Tigers.”
He admits to a personal inspiration there — even before Detroit drafted him.
“I was a Justin Verlander fan growing up,” Clark said, speaking of the Tigers’ heyday ace. “Maybe I can do what he did.”
He stopped at the Verlander mention, shaking his head as the rain beat down.
“C’mon man,” he said, mocking himself. “He’s the best player ever for the Tigers.
“Well, top three. He’s incredible.”
One thing he won’t share with Verlander, not immediately, is any splurge on automobiles, even if $7.7 million will buy you a showroom full of Lamborghinis and Ferraris.
Not that wheels are out of the picture.
“That’s probably the one main purchase I’ll make,” Clark said. “I’m kind of stingy.”
His choice, when it’s time to shop cars: a Corvette c7 zr1.
“My grandfather had three ‘Vettes,” said Clark, who aches yet that his maternal grandfather died when Max was young. “I have so many memories, riding around with him.”
New memories already are taking shape.
“They’re starting to form friendships they’ll have for the rest of their lives,” Garko said, talking about the way in which Clark and this year’s draft group, in only a few days, had bonded.
“That’s all happening as we teach them how the Tigers play this game. Having all the Tigers’ minor-league staff here is invaluable. The classrooms — the way to go about being a professional athlete.”
It’s sinking in. An 18-year-old rookie confirmed as much Tuesday.
“I’ve really enjoyed the process,” Clark said. “The personnel are awesome. Here I’m, just getting started, and I couldn’t be more excited.”
He paused again. He shrugged, his blond locks getting a shake.
“Hopefully,” Clark said, “I just want to make the Tigers better.”
Lynn Henning is a freelance writer and retired Detroit News sports reporter.