Like other baseball players stuck indoors, Stevenson’s Drew Clark has eagerly anticipated the first games of the season.
For Clark, however, the wait has been much longer. When the 6-foot-5 senior right-hander takes the mound for the Patriots in Florida this week, he will have completed his return from Tommy John surgery, which sidelined him for all of last season.
“I usually zone everything out when I pitch, and I’ll try to think of it as a normal day,” Clark said. “But when I step onto the field and the first batter walks up, I might take a minute to take it all in because it feels like I’ve been waiting a few years to get back out there.”
Indeed, Clark last pitched for Stevenson on May 29, 2024, when he came out of the bullpen during a Class 4A sectional semifinal against Prospect. He finished that season with a 4-1 record and a 2.93 ERA. A lot has transpired since then.
Clark apparently suffered a partially torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow while he was pitching for his travel team during summer 2024. But a full medical workup wasn’t completed until shortly before Stevenson’s tryouts last year, when an MRI revealed that surgery was needed.
“In the middle of that summer, we were thinking and hoping it wasn’t anything serious,” Clark said. “In my pitching lessons that offseason, I felt fine and was still able to get my usual velocity, but not past a certain threshold.
“When the MRI came back, it was obviously upsetting. Before that, I was ready to go back as a junior, but there was actually some relief that they found something wrong.”
Clark’s laborious, often painful recovery kept him sidelined through summer 2025.
“Rehab was not fun,” he said. “I remember trying to get my arm to fully extend was the first challenge, and that wasn’t easy. I still tried to go to practice and games to be around the guys, but it was definitely tough seeing everyone else playing and me doing nothing.
“The main goal became being as healthy as I could be for senior year.”
That time has arrived for Clark, who has made steady progress over the past few weeks. He began throwing off-speed pitches about a month ago.
“He was such a great teammate last year and would do anything he could to be involved or help,” Stevenson senior first baseman Ryan Martin said. “He’s worked so hard to get to where he’s at, and he’ll no doubt be a big part of our staff.”
New Stevenson coach Chris D’Amato, who had been an assistant at Evanston, was aware of Clark’s statistics as a sophomore but has only seen him throw in bullpen sessions indoors and face teammates in the cages.
Nonetheless, D’Amato came away impressed and is optimistic that Clark will be a significant factor in the Patriots’ success.
‘When he started, you could see that he wasn’t totally comfortable,” D’Amato said. “But as he’s gone live a couple of times, you could see his confidence growing. The velocity seems like it’s there, and with him being at his height, the fastball gets on you quickly.
“He gives us options to see where he best fits to start out, and I’m really excited to see him down in Florida go against opposing hitters.”
Clark doesn’t need to be a workhorse in March or April, given the presence of senior right-handers Frank Costabile and Ryan Harris, both Illinois-Chicago recruits, at the front of the rotation.
Clark said he probably will be limited to about three innings per outing early in the season, but that won’t change the way he pitches.
“What worked for me before was throwing first-pitch strikes and using the fastball to get ahead early in the count,” he said. “Once you’re ahead, you can really focus on making batters uncomfortable.”
Clark hopes to become comfortable quickly and earn an opportunity to pitch in college.
“I’ve been reaching out to juco and DIII coaches, and I’m just trying to get as many people as possible to see me,” he said. “But it’s a waiting game right now.
“I’m definitely optimistic. I’ve put in a good amount of work, and I need to stay within myself. Once the games start, I’m looking to turn it up a little bit.”
Steve Reaven is a freelance reporter.
