By Pete Cava
PBR Indiana Correspondent

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As an eighth-grader, Clayton Richard sat in the stands at Victory Field in Indianapolis and dreamed about taking the mound. 

Sixteen years later he got the chance.  Along the way, there were stops in Ann Arbor, Great Falls, Kannapolis, Winston-Salem, Birmingham, Charlotte, Chicago, San Diego, Tucson, Mobile, Reno and Bradenton.

A seven-year big league veteran, the 31-year-old Richard currently pitches for the Indianapolis Indians of the International League, the top farm club of the Pittsburgh Pirates.  The 6-foot-5, 240-pound left-hander is on the comeback trail after major surgery.

Growing up in Lafayette, Indiana, Richard didn’t get to Indianapolis to watch the Indians.  “I never could make it,” he said.  “We always had summer baseball.”

But on June 26, 1999, Richard traveled to Victory Field to watch Lafayette’s McCutcheon High School play Lawrence North of Indianapolis for the state Class 4A title.  Trailing 6-5 after six innings, McCutcheon took the lead with a two runs in the bottom of the sixth and went on to win its first-ever IHSAA title in any sport. 

After that, said Richard, sitting in Victory Field’s home dugout after an Indians workout, “I always envisioned myself on the mound here.”

Richard entered McCutcheon that fall and played for the baseball, basketball and football teams.  A quarterback, he threw for 10,777 yards and 92 touchdowns and was Indiana’s Mr. Football in 2002. 

In 2003 his win over Jeffersonville in the 4A baseball semifinals sent McCutcheon back to Victory Field for a showdown with Brownsburg for the state title.  Richard played right field and batted fifth in that contest, with Cory Peabody taking the hill for McCutcheon.  Richard knocked in four runs with a 2-for-4 performance as McCutcheon won 7-1.  “It was really a fun game against a conference rival,” said Richard.  “I remember Cory dominating.  “He struck out 14 guys and set a state record.”

In the bottom of the sixth, Richard popped up against the third of three Brownsburg hurlers, right-hander Lance Lynn – currently a member of the St. Louis Cardinals starting rotation.   “We’ve run across each other and caught up,” Richard said.  “But I never brought up that game.”

An outstanding student and valedictorian of his class, Richard received the L.V. Phillips Mental Attitude Award.  He was named Indiana’s Mr. Baseball for 2003, becoming the first Hoosier prep to win that honor on both the diamond and the gridiron. 

That autumn Richard entered the University of Michigan as a two-sport athlete.  Redshirted as a freshman, he was the Wolverines’ backup quarterback in 2004 and saw action in four contests.  “I went (there) thinking I could have started and could have been a productive option for them,” he said.  “When it was evident that I was not going to get an opportunity, that’s when I thought I was best suited to give it a shot in baseball.”

Richard pitched for Michigan in the spring of 2005, appearing in 21 contests, mostly in relief.  He was 0-1 with a 2.43 earned run average and 27 strikeouts in 33 innings.  That June, the Chicago White Sox selected him in the eighth round of the draft. 

Richard  signed and joined the Great Falls (Montana) Voyagers of the rookie Pioneer League.  A 2-1 mark with a 2.85 ERA earned him a promotion to the Kannapolis (N.C.) Intimidators of the low-A South Atlantic League, where he went 0-1, 5.23 in three contests. 

Richard opened the 2006 campaign at Kannapolis, going 6-6, 3.67 in 17 starts and one relief appearance.  He finished the year with the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Warthogs of the high-A Carolina League, posting a 1-3, 4.56 slate in four games.  He spent all of 2007 at Winston-Salem, going 8-12, 3.63.

Not considered a top prospect, Richard was assigned to Birmingham (Ala.) of the Class AA Southern League for 2008.  Under the tutelage of Barons pitching coach J.R. Perdew, he went 6-6 with a 2.47 ERA in 13 starts to earn a promotion to Charlotte of the AAA International League. 

Richard continued to shine for the Knights and was picked for the July 13 All-Star Futures Game.  Starting for the U.S. squad at Yankee Stadium, he allowed one hit, one walk and an unearned run over one inning and was saddled with a hard-luck loss.       

On July 17, with a 6-0 record for Charlotte, Richard was named to the U.S. team for the Olympic Games in Beijing.  “It’s a great honor to even be considered,” he told the Lafayette Journal & Courier.  “But to be chosen … I can’t wait for it to get started.”

Before leaving for China, Richard was set to make one more start for Charlotte – against Indianapolis at Victory Field on July 21.  But when White Sox right-hander Jose Contreras landed on the disabled list with elbow tendinitis, Richard was summoned to the Major Leagues. 

While the U.S. Olympic squad was preparing to leave for China, Richard was making arrangements for a trip to Chicago.  “The Olympics are something I can’t really worry about,”      Richard told reporters.  “This is a dream in itself.”

In 13 games with the Sox, Richard was 2-5 with a 6.04 ERA.  “He goes after people,” Chicago manager Ozzie Guillen said.  “I like what I see.”

So did the San Diego Padres, who acquired Richard in 2009 at the July 31 trading deadline as part of a five-player trade.  “Moving to the best pitcher’s park in the majors should accelerate his development,” USA Today’s Steve Gardner said of Richard’s shift to Petco Park in San Diego.

Richard finished the year with a combined 9-5 record, and in 2010 he went 14-9, 3.75 for the Padres.  Shoulder woes in 2011 limited him to a 5-9, 3.88 showing for 18 starts.  His season ended in July, when he had arthroscopic surgery.  Rebounding in 2012, Richard went 14-14, 3.99, and San Diego beat writers unanimously voted him as the Padres’ pitcher of the year.            

Early in 2013, Richard was dogged by an intestinal virus that forced him to make a pair of rehab starts for San Diego’s top farm club, the Tucson Padres (AAA Pacific Coast).  After rejoining the Padres, he was 2-5, 7.01 when he started against the Dodgers on June 21.  After two pitches, he had to quit. 

The bones in Richard’s acromioclavicular joint – located between the shoulder and collarbone – were grinding against each other, causing pain.  He went on the disabled list and underwent season-ending surgery.

Prior to the 2014 season, Richard’s shoulder still hadn’t come around.  He contacted a former San Diego teammate, right-handed pitcher Chris Young, who’d had a shoulder operation the year before.  “I went over the list of symptoms I had, and compared them to what he had,” said Richard.  “Our situations were strikingly similar.”

Young had undergone surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome, or TOS.  “It’s a situation where the nerves going from your neck out to your arm get compressed up against your first rib,” Richard explained.  “The scalene, which is your neck muscle, and the pec minor – the muscle in your chest – pull the nerves against that first rib.” 

The pectoralis minor is a thin, triangle-shaped muscle of the upper chest wall under the muscle of the upper chest wall, or pectoralis major.  It flexes and rotates the arm in the shoulder joint, and pulls the shoulder in. 

In February 2014, Richard consulted Dr. Robert W. Thompson, a St. Louis vascular specialist, who diagnosed the problem as TOS and recommended surgery.  “So what happened was,” Richard continued, “they took out the medial scalene, they took out my first rib, and they released the pec minor.  So now the nerve can function like it should.” 

While Chris Young was en route to a 12-9 record and comeback player of the year honors with the Seattle Mariners, Richard pondered his future.  “I wish I could say that I never had a doubt,” said Clayton.  “But to be honest with you, whenever you’re out and you know you could not throw before surgery, there’s a little bit of hesitation in confidence that it might not come back to normal.

“The recovery’s tough, because I was in the hospital for about a week afterwards.  I lost a lot of weight, not being able to eat for a while.  After that, things progressed relatively quickly and I started feeling better.”   

By now a man without a team, Richard signed with the Arizona Diamondbacks on August 1, 2014.  Nine days later he made his first start in over a year, pitching for the D-backs’ class AA affiliate, the Mobile (Ala.) BayBears of the Southern League.  He made two more appearances with Mobile before joining the PCL’s Reno (Nev.) Aces for one more start. 

Granted free agency after the season, Richard signed a minor league deal with Pittsburgh on December 3.  The decision all but assured him of a chance to take the bump at Victory Field. 

“I figured more likely than not, I’d spend some time in Triple-A,” he said.  “And to know that I’d be close to home, to be able to drive home and see family, it was a big positive.  It wasn’t a deciding factor.  But it was something I looked forward to.”

Richard began the year in Extended Spring Training, finally making his 2015 debut on May 7 with the Bradenton Marauders of the high-A Florida State League.  He struck out five in six scoreless innings, and on May 12 he joined Indianapolis.  That night he tossed five more shutout frames in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, as Indianapolis blanked the PawSox 6-0.

When Pawtucket came to Indianapolis on May 18, Richard finally got his chance to start at Victory Field.  His pass list that night numbered 115.  “My parents (Barry and Cindy) were both here,” he said.  “My grandmother, my grandpa, aunts, uncles, old coaches, friends of the family.  And then I don’t know how many others came from Lafayette  without getting tickets out of that block. 

“It was a lot of fun to see a lot of familiar faces.  I’ve been playing on the other side of the country for so long that people don’t get to watch, because the games are so late.  It was a really, really neat situation.”             

Also in the stands was Clayton’s wife Ashley, a former basketball and volleyball standout at Center Grove High School.  Clayton and Ashley’s sons, Cashton (born in 2012) and Cannon (born in 2013) stayed in Lafayette with Ashley’s parents, Kevin and Kathy Buckingham.  “They bit the bullet and took care of (the boys) for the evening,” said Clayton.

Richard worked into the sixth inning, allowing three runs when Pawtucket’s Luis Jimenez tripled with the bases loaded in the fifth.  Indianapolis went on to lose 7-4, but Richard wasn’t involved in the decision.

Was the 16-year wait worth it? 

“Without a doubt,” exclaimed Richard.  “It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, ever since we came to watch McCutcheon play in the state final when I was in eighth grade.”

Next, Clayton sees himself returning to the Major Leagues.  “I’m happy to be here now, but I’m looking forward to the future.  We’re going in the right direction.  I’m excited about every day I come to the park and help contribute.  There’s going to be things that I’m working on every day, trying to get better at.  I’m in a good place right now, and excited to be in that process.”

Pete Cava is the author of Indiana-Born Major League Baseball Players:  A Biographical Dictionary, 1871-2014, coming soon from McFarland Publishers.