Following in his father’s basepaths
Kacy Clemens very proud of famous pop but first baseman aims to make a name for himself
Before he rolled into town, Kacy Clemens had scouted out what being a Vancouver Canadian and playing at Nat Bailey Stadium meant.
“Cavan Biggio is one of my good buddies and I talked to him about it so I had a little bit of knowledge going in,” Clemens, a first baseman with this year’s C’s, said of Biggio, a second baseman last summer with the short-season, single-A Northwest League club. “Cavan is awesome.”
If you’re a baseball fan, they are exactly who you think they are. They’re the sons of former major league stars Craig Biggio and Roger Clemens, and they started hanging out in the Houston Astros’ clubhouse in 2004 when Kacy’s dad joined Craig’s dad for a three-year stint with the Texas squad. They’ve kept in contact since.
Biggio, 22, is in his second season in the Toronto Blue Jays’ farm system, playing for the advanced single-A Florida League Dunedin Blue Jays. Clemens, 22, was an eighthround pick of the Blue Jays earlier this month and was assigned to Vancouver hot on the heels of wrapping up his senior NCAA season with the Texas Longhorns.
Neither has had the baseball upbringing of your standard entry-level minor leaguer. For instance, asked about his favourite major-leaguer outside of his father, Clemens picked Derek Jeter, who Roger played with for six years seasons over two stints with the New York Yankees beginning in 1999.
“He is such a class act and definitely a role model. It was fun to get to learn from him when I was a kid,” Kacy said.
His coaches, Kacy added, have likened his swing to Baltimore Orioles’ slugger Chris Davis, but “my passion and emotions and that type of play definitely comes from my dad.”
His father played 24 years in the majors. He’s one of the most recognizable figures in baseball for this generation. The questions connected to him won’t go away anytime soon for Kacy. He seems to handle all that exceedingly well, though.
“I’m definitely used to it by now,” said the left-handed swinging Clemens, a 6-2, 200-pounder who has three brothers, including Longhorn sophomore infielder Kody Clemens. “It’s always going to come up as I continue to play a game that (Roger) mastered.
“It’s just a last name. That’s all it is. There are positives and negatives that come out of it. Some people want you to fail more. Some people want you to succeed more. It’s not something that I think about at all. I’m just Kacy, and that’s how I try come off to all the players in the clubhouse.”
You wonder if those ties would have been even more pronounced if he had stuck with pitching. Clemens played strictly first base this season at Texas, but before that he also saw some duty on the mound. He made 13 pitching appearances, including nine starts, over two years at Texas and was 3-2 with a 4.17 earned run average. Opposing hitters batted just .238 against him, but his strikeout-to-walk ratio in 45.1 innings was just 21/18.
Coincidence or not, Clemens flourished at the plate this season. Playing all but one of the Longhorns’ 63 games, he led the team in nearly every offensive category, including batting average (. 305), on-base percentage (. 414), slugging percentage (. 532), home runs (12), RBIs (49), runs (48), walks (40) and hits (67). He improved his career Longhorn average to .267.
He hit .278 (5-for-18) in his first five games with Vancouver.
“I do miss pitching a little bit,” Clemens said. “It’s fun to control the game.
“On the other side, I don’t like sitting for four games between starts. I like being part of every game. It did help my hitting. I was able to focus on one facet of the game.”