David Hughes: Denny McLain in the Haute brings back childhood memories

Dec. 24—It's a cold Christmas weekend and everyone in or near Vigo County hopes to thaw out before the First Financial Wabash Valley Classic for boys high school basketball begins Monday.

So the topic for today's column is . . . baseball, naturally.

Last Saturday, I had the opportunity to meet/interview Major League Baseball pitching legend Denny McLain during a two-day card show — organized by Hoosier Sports Cards owner Brad Martindale of Sullivan — at the International Union of Operating Engineers building in southern Vigo County.

If you're old enough to remember McLain or you're a young MLB historian, you know that he was the last 30-game winner when he chalked up 31 victories for the Detroit Tigers and earned the American League's Cy Young and Most Valuable Player awards in 1968.

At the end of that season, a sore-armed McLain lost to Bob Gibson twice before winning Game 6 of the World Series on just two days' rest, giving his teammates an opportunity to win Game 7 and the championship four games to three over the St. Louis Cardinals.

If you've read my columns over the years, you know my childhood heroes were Harmon Killebrew and Rod Carew. McLain pitched against Killebrew, the AL's all-time leader for home runs by a right-handed hitter (until Alex Rodriguez came along) with 573, and Carew, a seven-time AL batting champion. Both are members of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

So when McLain told me a story about pitching to Killebrew, I was on the edge of my seat.

"He was a great player and a great guy," McLain said of Killebrew, whom I interviewed in Terre Haute about 11 years before he died from esophageal cancer in 2011.

"I used to scream at him from the mound just to get him to swear back at me," McLain recalled, noting that Killebrew was known for never cussing, smoking or drinking alcohol.

"Hell, he wouldn't even talk to me. So after the game, he would either call me in the clubhouse or see me the next day on the field and he'd say, 'Man, I'm really sorry I didn't say something.' I said, 'Well, you weren't going to say anything anyway. I didn't want you to say hey Denny, how are you?'

"He was built like a fireplug. He told me 'thank you' once when he hit a home run."

Even though I was familiar with McLain's pitching career and somewhat familiar with his off-the-field controversies, I did a little Internet research to jog my memory on specifics before last Saturday.

For example, the right-handed McLain was born in Markham, Ill., about 165 miles from Terre Haute. He played 10 seasons in the majors, going from the Tigers to the Washington Senators to the Oakland Athletics to the Atlanta Braves.

The last MLB batter McLain faced was Pete Rose. His career record was 131-91. After short stints with minor-league clubs, he retired in 1973 with serious arm trouble.

Off the mound, McLain may have been even more entertaining.

In February 1970, Sports Illustrated and Penthouse magazines published articles about McLain's involvement in bookmaking activities. Sports Illustrated cited sources who alleged that a foot injury suffered by McLain late in 1967 was caused by an organized crime figure who stomped on McLain's foot as punishment for failing to pay off on a lost bet.

Then-MLB commissioner Bowie Kuhn suspended McLain for what ended up being the first three months of the 1970 season. Having captured the AL Cy Young award in 1968 and 1969 (with 24 victories, shared with Baltimore ace Mike Cuellar), McLain never regained that mound magic.

An accomplished organist and pianist who also taught himself how to fly a plane, he served two separate stints in prison and later hosted a popular talk show on a Detroit radio station and released an autobiography titled "I Told You I Wasn't Perfect," co-written by longtime Detroit sportscaster and author Eli Zaret.

So when I was introduced to McLain last Saturday, I threw out subjects and asked him to respond. He's 78 and I figured he's been interviewed by shadier big-city reporters than me. Nothing could shock him by now, right?

—Why did the 1968 season turn out so well for him? — "You got to be lucky. You got to stay healthy. You literally have to do everything right for nine innings every time you go out there."

—Did he really drink a case of Pepsi-Cola a day as a young adult? — "I think so. I used to work for Pepsi for 20-some years [after his MLB career ended]. . . . With the Pepsi, it's another one of those great vitamins that you don't use often enough, just like the Twinkies. They go together."

—Did he groove a fastball to his childhood idol Mickey Mantle so he could homer one more time before retiring in 1968, then throw a heater that buzzed the head of Mantle's teammate Joe Pepitone (and deny it all afterward)? — "I almost killed [Pepitone]. Almost killed him. He said, 'You [s.o.b.], you tried to kill me.' I said, 'Joe, with my control, if I wanted to hit you, don't you think I could have killed you at any moment?'"

McLain told me that he always liked Pepitone and considered him a friend. But he didn't appreciate Pepitone sticking his bat over the plate before the pitch, suggesting that McLain groove a fastball the way he had done for an aging Mantle.

"Joe said, 'That one was too close. I peed down my leg,'" McLain continued. "I said, 'You what?' He said, 'I peed down my leg.'

"Joe's a dear friend now, but Mickey epitomized the game. I still think he was the biggest iconic character the game has ever seen."

—Did he really lose 162 pounds from when he was way too heavy in the early 2010s? — "I did. I had the AFib [Atrial Fibrillation] operation. I lost 87 pounds in about 60 days. I lost another 20 or 30 [pounds] over the next 30 days or so. It worked. I was down to almost my playing weight [usually close to 185 pounds]."

Unfortunately, McLain gained some of that weight back in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic first wreaked havoc on U.S. citizens.

"What do you do?" he asked. "I sat down on the couch in the living room. You couldn't go out because you were afraid of getting whatever the hell was out there. So I literally, literally, didn't do a [card] show, go anywhere. I sat in the house for two years. I never left the house for two years. It was a trying time to say the least."

McLain admitted that devouring Twinkies during that strange time in world history didn't help him maintain his slimmer physique, although he looks fine now.

The subject McLain wanted to discuss the most — something I didn't know about and therefore didn't ask about — was his longtime wife Sharyn, who died from Parkinson's and related illnesses in December 2019. Sharyn was the daughter of former MLB star Lou Boudreau.

"It's a hole that you can't fill," he said somberly. "We had four children and 10 grandchildren."

McLain also mentioned that he recently lost his 1968 World Series ring when it flew off his hand while he waved to a friend in a crowded Detroit casino. Amazingly, he got it back later when the woman who found it on her table made contact with people who knew McLain and returned it through them. Nowadays, he no longer wears it out.

One of the many old-school baseball fans who came to get McLain's autograph last Saturday was Terre Haute resident Mark Emery, who's employed at Saturn Petcare after working as a welder for several years.

Emery became a Pittsburgh Pirates fan as a youngster, but he still admired and respected McLain during his miraculous two-year stretch highlighted by 55 regular-season pitching victories.

Emery's wife Michelle took a photo of Mark and McLain together, something Mark promised he will cherish for a long time.

"I'm ecstatic," he admitted, searching for the right words. "I had him autograph a [late-1960s] baseball card and I got my picture taken with him.

"And I got to shake his hand."

That hand most likely will be the last hand to ever win 30 games in a season, considering how pitch counts and rest days are monitored at all levels of baseball these days.

----Martindale said there were about 20 vendors selling memorabilia at this card show. This was the 12th show he's put on in Terre Haute, but this was the first time he's featured someone with McLain's name value as a special guest.

Considering my biggest regret during all of my years in the newspaper business is never meeting Rod Carew, you can guess whom I suggested Martindale try to recruit for a future card show.

David Hughes can be reached by phone at 1-800-783-8742 or at (812) 231-4224 (although he rarely answers his phone) or by email at david.hughes@tribstar.com.