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DENNY McLAIN |
 PITCHER DENNY McLAIN ...baseball's last 30-game winner in his golden days |
His prison days are over,
so McLain can smile again
of TheColumnists.com
The last time we
met he was wearing that grey prison suit, had the pale look of
incarcerated inmates, spoke haltingly of his current status as
a prisoner in theWestchester County (NY) jail and protested his
innocence.
Now he was dressed in a dapper tuxedo, looked pleasingly plump
at some 350 plus pounds, complained that his knees had given
out finally and joked constantly about his new, happy life.
“I have five grandchildren,” Denny McLain said with
a broad smile. “If I knew they would be this much fun I
would have skipped having any children.”
McLain is a free man now after serving his time in various prisons
for fraud and racketeering charges after a brilliant baseball
career.
He was the last pitcher to win 30 games with his 31-6 mark in
1968 as he led the Tigers to a World Series victory and added
a second straight Cy Young award in 1969 with 24 wins. Then his
arm went south and he was out of baseball in three more years
with a 10-year mark of 131-91.
McLain was in New York as one of the honorees at the annual New
York Baseball Writers dinner, along with Luis Tiant and Bob Gibson
for being remarkable pitchers 40 years ago and receiving what
the writers call the Willie, Mickey and Duke award for the three
great New York centerfielders, Mays, Mantle and Snider.
“I’m doing well now,” said McLain, who still makes
his home in Detroit where he became a legendary figure for his
pitching and a controversial figure for his conduct. “I
have an import-export business that is really successful.”
He was accused in his playing time of being associated with gamblers,
faked some injuries, played gigs at nightclubs, said some rowdy
things about baseball’s executives and the commissioner
and was an all around trouble maker.
Through all this he was always funny with his remarks and enjoyed
talking about himself, a distinct plus as far as sportswriters
are concerned.
He gave up a complimentary home run to Mickey Mantle in Detroit
as Mickey wound up his career and winked at Mantle as he rounded
third after hitting the cupcake.
“Jimmy Price was my catcher that day and didn’t know
what was going on. I laid it right in for Mickey and he hit a
huge home run. Jimmy came to the mound and questioned me about
my control. I never had better control on a pitch, getting it
right where Mickey wanted it,” McLain said.
After his career ended, McLain spent some time working for a
union and the handling of pension funds led to major problems.
He went to jail for juggling some books, got out and went back
to prison again when the federal government decided he hadn’t
dealt with all the charges.
“I didn’t do any of this,” he insisted when I
visited him several years back at the Westchester County Prison
in a town actually called Valhalla.
He was finally released, returned home to Detroit, resumed his
business career and seems comfortable now at the age of 64 with
his wife of 42 years, the former Sharon Boudreau, daughter of
Hall of Famer Lou Boudreau.
“Nobody has put up with more than she has,” he told
the assembled audience at the baseball dinner. “She deserves
all the awards.”
He kidded another former teammate, Rusty Staub, for being about
as heavy as he is.
“We’re invited to a buffet tomorrow,” he said.
“As soon as we enter they’ll give us a hundred dollars
each if we please leave.”
McLain had those two spectacular years as a pitcher in the late,
loose 1960s but the feeling always persisted then and now that
much of his talent was wasted on lost causes.
“I had fun in those days and I wouldn’t take anything
back,” he said. “I’m not saying that I enjoyed
my time in the slammer but I think you learn from everything
you do. I even learned from that.”
Denny McLain entertained the press and the public with his pitching
and his character 40 years ago. No reporter ever left a McLain
interview without a full notebook.
In 1968 Denny McLain pitched 336 innings. Now it would take a
starting pitcher about three seasons to get that many innings
in.
“I enjoyed every inning I pitched,” he said. “I
had a short career but I had a fun-filled career. Hey Mark Fidrych
(the Bird) had only one good year and he is still living off
that.”
As we left for the dinner I asked McLain about his memories of
his time in Westchester.
“It’s a nice place to visit,” he said, “but
I wouldn’t want to stay there.”
©2008 by Maury Allen. The Maury Allen caricature is ©2001
by Jim Hummel. The photo is courtesy of Wikipedia. This column
first posted Feb. 4, 2008.
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