Since 1931, three pitchers have achieved 30 wins in a season: Denny McLain (31 with 1968 Tigers), Dizzy Dean (30 with 1934 Cardinals) and Lefty Grove (31 with 1931 Athletics).
I met McLain on Jan. 31, 2015, at a sports card show at the American Legion Hall in Sebastian, Fla. Richard Stone, who produces the show, was kind in introducing me to McLain and arranging the interview.
McLain was friendly, talkative, outspoken.
The pitcher, who used to drink a case of Pepsi a day, said he had dropped 180 pounds, crediting a procedure called bariatric surgery, which removed a portion of his stomach.
In 1968, when he won both the American League Most Valuable Player and Cy Young awards, McLain had a 31-6 record, 1.96 ERA and 28 complete games. He won a second Cy Young Award in 1969, with a 24-9 record, 2.80 ERA and 23 complete games.
McLain was suspended by baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn for part of the 1970 season because of his association with bookmakers. After his playing career, he twice went to prison: the first time on a conviction for racketeering and the second time on a conviction for embezzlement.
Here are excerpts from my tape-recorded interview with Denny McLain:
Q.: You are the last pitcher with 30 wins in a season. Do you think the achievement gets the credit it deserves?
Denny McLain: “As time goes by, the stories about it become greater, but the appreciation becomes a little less. Will anyone win 30 again? Obviously not. The game has changed. No else is going to do it.”
Q.: Do you think today’s major leaguers appreciate the feat?
Denny McLain: “A lot of players today don’t know historically what happened 30, 40 years ago. There are some, but they are the exceptions. Very few know or actually care. It’s about the paycheck. Despite how the current guys treat them, the former players still respect the players today. That’s the difference.
“Of course, we’re all a little jealous of the money. The guys today don’t understand what we did to get them to the place where they are today. We walked out (on strike) when we were making $20,000, $30,000 a year. I wonder if they were making $20,000, $30,000 a year today how many guys would walk out. Guys today win 15 games and make $30 million a year.”
Q.: Insane?
Denny McLain: “Insane is a kind word. They should be committed.”
Q.: You and Dizzy Dean are the last two pitchers to win 30 in a season. You both are considered to be free spirits. Do you see similarities to him?
Denny McLain: “Dizzy and I both had the same personalities. We got along super well because he was as nuts as I was.”
Q.: You got to meet him?
Denny McLain: “I met both Dizzy Dean and Lefty Grove.”
Q.: What was Dizzy Dean like?
Denny McLain: “He wanted to have a good time all the time. He was a big-time gambler. On the night before I won my 30th in 1968, Dizzy says to me, ‘How you feeling? Anything bothering you? Think you’re going to win tomorrow?’ At the time, I didn’t know he was a big-time gambler. Dizzy was soliciting information.”
Q.: What was Lefty Grove like?
Denny McLain: “Lefty Grove was the nicest man I ever met in my life. He was a class act. He was articulate. He knew the game.”
Q.: In 1966, at age 22, you were the starting pitcher for the American League in the All-Star Game at St. Louis and retired all 9 batters you faced …
Denny McLain: “Six of them are in the Hall of Fame.”
Q.: They would be Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, Hank Aaron, Willie McCovey, Ron Santo and Joe Torre. Mays led off and struck out …
Denny McLain: “I had him 3-and-2. Bill Freehan, my catcher, called for a curve. In an All-Star Game, to call a curve on 3-and-2 is pretty drastic. I was so pumped up. I threw a curve that was one of the greatest I’ve ever thrown in my life. They call it a 6 o’clocker.” Boxscore
Q.: Then Clemente flied out and Aaron struck out …
Denny McLain: “In winter ball in 1964 in Puerto Rico, I played against Santurce. That team had Clemente and (Orlando) Cepeda. First time I pitched against them, I struck them out each four times. That’s when Clemente came up to me and said, ‘Why aren’t you in the big leagues?’ I said, ‘I am.’ ”
Q.: The story is that before the 1968 World Series you said you wanted not only for the Tigers to beat the Cardinals, you wanted to humiliate them. True?
Denny McLain: “I wanted us to beat them in four. I got tired of hearing about Bob Gibson’s (1.12) ERA. I kept saying, ‘If he’s that good, why didn’t he win some more games?’ I know one of the quotes I said was, ‘He won 22 games. I won 21 by the end of July.’ That really got everybody ticked off.”
Q.: Then in Game 1 of the World Series, Gibson strikes out 17, pitches a shutout and you get lifted after five innings …
Denny McLain: “There’s nothing you could do. We got beat 4-0. One of us was going to win and one of us was going to lose. I lost.” Boxscore
Q.: You and Gibson were matched again in Game 4. Again, he won …
Denny McLain: “We shouldn’t have played the game. It was played in a downpour. I was never a mudder.” Boxscore
Q.: In Game 6, you start against Ray Washburn, pitch a complete game and win …
Denny McLain: “That was my day. If we lose that game …”
Q.: The World Series is over …
Denny McLain: “It would have killed me.”
Q.: You received a cortisone shot for your right shoulder before that game. How much did that help?
Denny McLain: “I got the injection about an hour before the game. I got another touch to it about 20 minutes before I went to warm up. Took some kind of pill. I didn’t have any pain until the fifth or sixth inning.” Boxscore
Q.: You struck out seven, walked none, the Tigers win, 13-1 …
Denny McLain: “The thing that made me mad about that ballgame is there were two outs in the ninth and I had a shutout. Julian Javier got a base hit with a man on second. Boy, was I mad. It was just a lousy ground ball that went through the hole.”
Q.: Did you feel the win was redemption after two losses to Gibson?
Denny McLain: “They only had one pitcher. That was Gibson. The rest of them weren’t very good. We were surprised at how bad their pitching was. But what St. Louis did is much like what we did: Play fundamentally sound baseball. If you play the game soundly, you will win.”
Previously: Should Curt Flood have caught Jim Northrup’s drive?
Hey Denny. What about Mantle?
That year Gibson gave up one run in 100 innings and that run was on a wild pitch. Gibson was a heck of a lot better than McClain and he was a better competitor. The fact that McClain cannot show respect for Gibson proves him to be a small man with no class.