Franklin’s Clark embraces Victory Field spotlight

INDIANAPOLIS

Last Friday night’s high school doubleheader at Victory Field was generally marketed as a pair of regular ol’ baseball games — Guerin Catholic vs. Heritage Christian and Franklin vs. Zionsville.

In the minds of most Indy-area fans, though, there may as well have been a rock-concert marquee outside the stadium with one name in bright lights:

MAX CLARK

ONE NIGHT ONLY

Franklin’s senior center fielder, the consensus No. 1 high school player in the country and almost certainly a top-five pick in this summer’s Major League Baseball draft, has become one of the most popular baseball players in America — at any level. He has over 270,000 followers on Instagram and nearly as many on TikTok, making him a hotter commodity among young fans than most of the players currently in the majors. (For random comparison’s sake, T.J. Friedl, who starts in center for the Cincinnati Reds, has just over 10,000 followers on “the Gram.”)

The noise has been there all season long; MLB scouts and executives, media and throngs of wide-eyed children have been following every move that Clark and the Grizzly Cubs make. But the Victory Field tour stop was a whole new level of crazy.

It starts out like the morning of any other Franklin game for Clark. He goes to school until about 11 a.m., then drives to Chipotle for his customary game-day lunch — which, like most things Max-related, has become something of a legend unto itself.

(In case you were wondering: Double-wrapped burrito with double the chicken, plus queso, lettuce, cheese and hot salsa, all accompanied by a side of chips and queso dip.)

In the afternoon, Clark returns to the school to do some stretching and prep work with the Grizzly Cubs’ athletic trainer, Marcus Davis. After that, it’s out to the field, where batting practice for Friday’s game got started around 4:30 p.m.

With country songs blaring from the Mercer Field loudspeakers, Clark joined sophomore Landen Basey and senior Jackson Henry as part of the first rotation of players in the cage.

Though the scene was relatively quiet (music aside), there were scouts from four MLB teams on hand — the Reds, Pittsburgh Pirates, Detroit Tigers and Minnesota Twins — along with Clark’s advisor, Sam Samardzija, who drove down with his son from Valparaiso for the evening, and a handful of videographers.

Oh yes, the videographers. Part of what makes Clark such an star among the youngest generation of fans is the battery of YouTube channels chronicling his every move. HoopEditz, a channel run by Franklin senior Kage McCorkle, is in the process of putting together a season-long docuseries on Clark, even recording a recent trip to the tattoo parlor. DSARM and Shot By Hype, two popular baseball-related channels with more than 100,000 subscribers between them, have also made return trips to town. They’ve traveled in from Los Angeles and North Carolina, respectively.

Despite the onlookers, Clark went about his business. He began one round by popping up a bunt, shaking his head in disapproval. Two rounds later, he got down a pair of bunts that he deemed satisfactory, then finished his turn by pummeling four of his last half-dozen swings over the fence.

“That was fun,” he said as he exited the cage.

At about 6 p.m., the Grizzly Cubs got on the bus to make their way downtown. From there, the night went something like this:

6:41 p.m.

Franklin’s bus pulls up to Victory Field and the players make their way into the stadium. Clark, one of the last players off the bus, spots a couple of the aforementioned YouTubers in the parking lot and greets them despite having just seen them at the high school moments earlier.

Five minutes and a walk through the concourse later, the Grizzly Cub players and coaches have settled into some seats along the right-field line, waiting for the Guerin-Heritage contest to end. By 6:49, roughly eight or 10 young fans have made their way over to Section 119 hoping to snag an autograph. Alas, Clark is nowhere to be found, at least for now.

7:20 p.m.

Up 10-1 with two men on base, Class 3A No. 2 Guerin Catholic tries to finish Heritage Christian off an inning early, but the Golden Eagles end up stranding those runners. So much for the 10-run rule. Clark, back in Section 119 with his teammates, finishes off an energy drink as he waits.

7:27 p.m.

Clark has finally been spotted by that first wave of autograph seekers. A few young boys slowly make their way down the steps to where their hero is sitting. Some want items signed, others simply desire a photo. Clark obliges them all and does so with a smile.

Just moments later, Guerin caps off its victory and the Franklin team makes its way onto the field to begin warmups. The cameramen all follow.

8:18 p.m.

After warming up and signing a couple of other autographs outside of the dugout (for kids clad in Zionsville gear, no less), Clark steps behind home plate to catch a ceremonial first pitch from Franklin principal Steve Ahaus.

In Ahaus’ defense, it won’t be the last Grizzly Cub pitch to miss the strike zone.

8:27 p.m.

Clark comes to the plate for the first time with one out in the top of the first inning. He works the count to three balls and one strike before smacking a single up the middle against Zionsville starter Chase Wagner. Following the third out, teammate Nash Netter takes the field, bringing a cap, sunglasses and baby blue glove out to the stranded Clark.

8:35 p.m.

The Eagles score the first run of the game when a botched pickoff throw sails into the outfield. It’s the start of what ends up being a long and very ugly inning for Franklin.

9:01 p.m.

His Grizzly Cubs down 10-0 and still trying in vain to get out of the bottom of the first inning, Clark is conversing with some young fans who are leaning over the railing by the outfield wall.

Are they admirers or hecklers?

“A little bit of both,” Clark said with a smile. “A couple of kids asking for balls, a couple of kids heckling and a couple of kids just asking some great questions out there. Actually, one of them asked what my Chipotle meal was, too, so that was awesome.

“It was great. The heckling was all good-natured, so I had a blast with them out there. They were really funny.”

Two minutes later, Clark hauls in a fly ball to bring the first inning to a merciful end with the Grizzly Cubs down by 10. He comes back to the dugout, naturally upset with the course of events thus far, and eventually sits himself down on a bucket at the top of the dugout steps to watch his teammates bat in the second.

9:27 p.m.

With the score still at 10-0 in the top of the third, Clark comes to bat for a second time. He again works the count to 3-1, then takes what he believes to be ball four. As he tosses his bat aside and starts skipping toward first base, the home-plate umpire puts up a fist to signal strike two.

Shellshocked, Clark gets back into the batter’s box. He swings and misses at Wagner’s next pitch — just his fifth strikeout of the season and only the 19th time he’s been retired in 95 plate appearances.

“Honestly, the kid just made a really good pitch,” Clark said. “I was expecting off-speed/changeup, but he threw an absolute banger curveball. So props to Chase — he’s a really, really good player. He executed his pitch, and I did not execute the swing.”

The whiff lowers Clark’s on-base percentage to a paltry .800.

9:50 p.m.

Anthony Wycklendt, a former minor league player now working as the area scout for the Pittsburgh Pirates, is talking on his phone and strolling around the concourse. He’s spent plenty of time watching Clark this spring, and not without reason — the Bucs own the first overall pick in the draft, and Clark is very much on their short list of possible selections.

At this point, what is Wycklendt looking for when he comes to a game like this?

“Seeing if you see anything new,” he said. “Is it consistent with what we’ve seen in the past? How does he interact with his teammates, energy level? … Just getting out to the park and seeing what you can see.”

Obviously, Wycklendt won’t make the final call on whether the Pirates select Clark or LSU star Dylan Crews or someone else at No. 1 this summer, but as the main local point of contact, his opinions will carry plenty of weight with Pittsburgh general manager Ben Cherington and the rest of the team’s top officials.

“It’s just a continuous team effort,” Wycklendt said of the team’s pre-draft process. “Different people have come in to see him, and you kind of put the puzzle pieces together and see what we can come up with.”

The major league teams occupying each of the top nine draft slots have scouts at the game; of the first 11 teams picking, the Miami Marlins (No. 10) are the only one not represented.

10:03 p.m.

Clark comes to the plate for the third and final time with Franklin facing a 10-1 margin in the top of the fifth. With two out, Clark works the count to 3-0 and then collects his second hit of the night before again ending up stranded.

10:20 p.m.

Zionsville scores in the bottom of the inning to walk off an 11-1 win. As Clark and his teammates huddle up in right field, a crowd of at least 50 children gathers next to the Grizzly Cubs’ dugout, jockeying for a chance to get an autograph and/or a photo. As the team huddle breaks, a few kids start chanting, “We want Max.”

They’ll have to want for a little bit longer. Clark heads to the dugout to gather his bag, poses for a couple of promo photos on the field with the video guys and then talks to the local newspaper for a couple of minutes. In the meantime, the eager throng of fans has been shepherded up into the concourse.

10:31 p.m.

Clark exits the field and walks upstairs to the concourse, where he’s almost immediately enveloped by somewhere between 75 and 100 people who’ve been waiting all night just to get some small piece of him. It’s all part of a very familiar postgame routine for Clark, but the turnout was far greater for this game than the average midweek game at Franklin.

If he had his druthers, Clark would likely stay and sign for as long as it took to get through everyone. His team is waiting for him, though, and so Grizzly Cub coach Ryan Feyerabend has to play the bad guy. After almost 15 uninterrupted minutes of signing and posing, Clark starts making his way toward the stadium exit.

He continues signing autographs on the move until he reaches the door.

10:47 p.m.

Clark steps out into the downtown Indy night, walking toward the bus with the coaching staff, the last few waiting teammates and what’s left of the YouTube contingent. Despite the lopsided defeat, he’s still all smiles.

Who could blame him? The world is Max Clark’s oyster right now, and Friday night didn’t do anything but make that more obvious. He’s a preternaturally talented teenager with a massive online following who’s a little more than two months away from potentially becoming a multimillionaire, and so just about every day is a good one right now.

Hectic, but good.

Friday night, though, was still a special one, even for him — not only because of what this all means to a high school kid now, but because of the possible foreshadowing. In about three years, Clark could well be patrolling the same Victory Field outfield again while running the final leg of his journey to the majors.

“Honestly, it was fantastic,” Clark said after the game. “I don’t get extra nervous or anything, but I just feel like it’s another really, really good opportunity to go out and do something very cool. If you ask around, there’s not too many kids in the country that are playing on Triple-A fields at 17 and 18. So that opportunity is really cool, and it’s surreal more than making me anxious.

“I caught myself taking a pan around, thinking of what could be next.”

He wasn’t the only one.