Man proves polio doesn’t have to be a strikeout so you can swing for the fences too

Dave Clark’s story starts back in 1953.

“I was diagnosed with polio at ten months old,” Clark said. “First, doctors told my parents I wasn’t going to live and then told them I wasn’t going to have any muscular use at all.”

They were wrong.

“I came out a year later wearing two full-length leg braces and crutches,” Clark said. “That’s how I grew up.”

Clark learned how to do everything with crutches and leg braces, including playing baseball.

“I played against able-bodied kids,” Clark said. “I played Little League and went up the ladder. I had the dream of every kid at that time to play professional baseball. I didn’t realize how absurd that really was.”

Dave knew he had limitations that his teammates didn’t, but he never doubted himself, thanks to his parents and a lesson he learned from his third-grade gym teacher.

“Until you try something, you don’t know if you can do it or not, it doesn’t matter your limitations,” Clark said. “You need to try it. You need to step out of your comfort level and try it because you might surprise yourself.”

He surprised more than just himself when at 18-years-old he was signed to the Pittsburgh Pirates minor league system and played professional baseball on crutches.

“When I got signed, I realized you are a little different,” Clark said. “You had some people to help pull you along toward your dream. Now it’s your turn.”

Crutches and all, Clark set out on a decades-long professional baseball career, playing, coaching and scouting for several leagues.

Throughout his career, he made it a priority to give others with disabilities the same opportunities that he was given.

“I would look to find a group home or any kind of organization that dealt with kids or even adults with limitations, and I’d go in off the street cold,” Clark said. “I’d say, ‘Hey, you want tickets to the game tonight?’”

He took it a step further and invited them to practice with the pros on the field before game time.

“It was very impromptu, and it was very unorganized, but we would get them down on the field, and it turned out they just loved it,” Clark said.

That turned into what Clark and his partners do today: travel the country offering free baseball camps, led by professional players, for people of all ages with limitations of any kind.

Through the camps, called Disability, Dream and Do, or D3, Days, Dave wants to show everyone, limitations or not, that they have potential.

“This isn’t really about baseball,” Clark said “It’s about getting out on the field, enjoying yourself and doing something that you might not think you might be able to do.”

The message got through to Michael Appel, who participated in his first D3 Day three-years-ago.

“It’s lots of fun,” Appel said. “All my friends love it. We go down to play. We meet the players on the field, and it’s lots of fun.”

Appel and Clark developed a close friendship about much more than baseball.

“He’s been through some of the same stuff as me, bullied and stuff,” Appel said. “He tells me kind of different stories, but kind of the same in some ways. You just have to handle it. It can be hard, but you have to handle it.

Clark has experienced bullying on and off the diamond since grade school, but people in his life pulled him along, seeing him for his potential, not his limitations.

So Clark, now in his 70s, is doing the same for the next generation and the ones to come.

“I have what’s called post-polio now, which has made it much tougher to walk with the crutches,” Clark said. “Travel is more difficult for me, but I’m going to continue to do this until I can’t do it anymore. 

If we know Clark, even then, he’ll find a way to make it happen.

The next camp is on Saturday at Hammond Stadium with the Mighty Mussels.

Clark hopes to expand into more cities in years to come so he can encourage as many people as he can that everyone has potential no matter their limitations.