Denny McLain in 2018
The writer is a Detroit freelancer and former Detroit News reporter.
By Paul Harris
The name Denny McLain evokes intense and conflicting emotions: Nostalgia, disgust, admiration, anger, even contempt. You wonder why he did the things he did and why, more than once, he threw away a seemingly good life.
Major League Baseball’s last 30-game winner, who helped the Tigers win the World Series in 1968, the American League’s MVP and Cy Young Award winner, McLain also served prison time, twice --once for racketeering, extortion and possession of cocaine in 1985, and then for embezzlement and money laundering in 1996 involving a pension fund of a meat packing company he co-owned.
Denny McClain this year.
Dennis Dale McLain has always had the gift of gab, was and remains a shameless self promoter. Even now, he has the ability to ingratiate himself to those who know full well of his past. Not coincidentally, all of those qualities are among the traits of a con man.
Alex Kimbrough, longtime director at Fox 2 Detroit, directed the “Eli and Denny Show,” with McLain and sportscaster Eli Zaret, which ran from 1990-93. He perhaps illustrates the effect McLain has on people he interacts with day-to-day:
“Denny McLain and I always got along on and off the show and he was always very warm to me. We never had a cross word,” Kimbrough says.
He adds: “What he did was awful.”
The Tigers are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the 1968 World Series championship this season. Obviously, McLain, now 74 and living in Livingston County, was a huge part of that success. But he is only peripherally involved in the season-long celebration.
He has been invited to participate in the culmination of the festivities, a weekend series Sept. 7-9 against the St. Louis Cardinals, the team Detroit defeated in seven games in the '68 Series. But that’s all.
The Tigers are giving away bobblehead dolls of the four other living stars of the 1968 team – Mickey Lolich, Al Kaline, Willie Horton and Bill Freehan – over the season, but not one of McLain.
After agreeing to an interview for this column via e-mail, McLain - when reached by phone – put it off three times, saying he was busy caring for his wife. Sharyn McLain has Parkinson’s disease.
'Heroic Performances'
Officially, the team counts him in -- at least in public statements. “We are thrilled to honor the legacy of players from that ’68 ballclub, including many who played a vital role with heroic performances, including Al Kaline, Willie Horton, Bill Freehan, World Series MVP Mickey Lolich, and AL Cy Young winner and MVP Denny McLain, to name a few,” the Tigers organization told Crain's Detroit Business this year.
But he just cannot imagine why he, a two-time felon whose second conviction involved stealing the pension money of a small company’s employees, is not more prominent in the promotional plans of an organization trying to ease the sting of a lousy 2018 season with happy nostalgia for its glory days.
“I don’t quite understand it. There might be something going on I don’t know about,” McLain said in the Crain’s story. “Maybe there’s a good explanation for it. I’m not hurt as much as my wife is. Maybe some things will change before it’s over. It would be nice to be included in the exceptional moments. I was there in ’68 when we won it all.”
Supremely gifted, with supreme bad luck McLain has endured hardships not of his making.
Denny McLain celebrates a 1968 victory.
His daughter was killed by a drunk driver in 1992, and he takes care Sharyn – who married him 53 years, divorced him during his second prison term and remarried him in 2003.
And he has managed to regain the trust of his family (they have have three surviving children and seven grandchildren), he says.
“You just have to work every day putting the pieces back together, putting the family back together, being there for your family,” McLain told MLive in a story published earlier this month. “That is the biggest thing. It is a real tragedy not to see your kids show up, not see them ride their first bike, drive their first car. Those are all big things.
“They were very upset. I had to live through that, but life is good now. Life is great.”
Taste of Greatness
Originally signed as a free agent by his hometown Chicago White Sox before the 1962 season, the Tigers selected McLain off waivers in April of 1963, when he was 19. After a couple of years bouncing between Detroit and the minors, between the bullpen and starting, McLain blossomed as a starter. He was 16-6 in 1965, and 20-14 in 1966.
The young McLain had everything: He was a successful pro athlete, handsome, a smooth talker and self-promoter. Capping it all, at 21, he married baseball royalty. Sharyn is the daughter of Hall of Famer Lou Boudreau.
What's more, McLain can play piano and organ. During the height of his fame as a player, McLain made appearances – in live promotions and on television -- in which he would play one of those well. In fact, after he retired, he was part of a promotion by a suburban Detroit bar in which McLain played the piano and former boxing heavyweight champion Leon Spinks, who also did not handle success well, tended bar.
In 1968, everything came together for McLain and the Tigers. He went 31-6 to become the first pitcher in 34 years to win 30 games, and followed that with a 24-9 record in 1969, winning his second consecutive A.L. Cy Young Award.
The gifts, as they usually are, were balanced by weaknesses. McLain was a habitual gambler, and a hothead. He was suspended twice in 1970, six months for bookmaking and a shorter term for dumping water on two sportswriters.
And he was human: The ace's right arm was showing the effects of pitching an average of almost 280 innings per season for the previous five years.
Detroit Historical Society photo
He was only 3-5 with a 4.63 earned-run average in 1970 when the Tigers traded him to the Washington Senators (now Texas Rangers) during the offseason. McLain went 10-22 with a 4.28 ERA in 1971. He split 1972 between the Oakland A’s and Atlanta Braves, was a combined 4-7 with an ERA over 6.00. His arm was shot and his Major League career was over at the age of 28.
McLain had idle time on his hands, something he did not need.
McLain filled it by playing piano in bars and clubs, along with promotional appearances and hustling golf. His weight, 185 during his playing career, ballooned to around 330 pounds.
A Darker Turn
The bad behavior did not stop, and April 1985, McLain was sentenced in Tampa, Fla., to 23 years in federal prison for racketeering, extortion and drug-dealing. He maintained his innocence throughout and was even chided by the judge for not admitting his guilt, according to the Associated Press.
Fate cut him a break when the racketeering conviction was overturned by a federal appeals court in 1987, after McLain had served 29 months. When he got out of prison, he managed to rebuild his professional life into something of a success again. He hosted a daily radio talk show on WXYT-AM, did the “Eli and Denny Show”, became a regular at baseball card shows and did other side gigs based on his celebrity.
Then his oldest daughter, Kristin, 26, was killed in a car accident by a drunk driver on March 20, 1992.
“It took me easily at least 15-16 years to be humbled a bit after she died,” McLain told MLive. “It took me that long. Even today I have some bad days that will shock the hell out of people. There is nothing in this world that can describe the loss of a child. Of all the things I have been a part of, good, bad or indifferent, losing a daughter is miles away from being in the slammer.”
But old habits die hard. He and several partners bought the Peet Packing Company, which was located in Chesaning, Mich., in 1994, and McLain was also a partner in the Michigan Radio Network. Both companies went bankrupt within two years. And in 1996, McLain was convicted of embezzlement, mail fraud and conspiracy, in connection with the theft of about $3 million from the Peet employees’ pension fund. That led to another prison term – this time six years - although he maintains his innocence to this day.
Denny McLain was the Tigers’ biggest story in 1968. But he has also been the biggest bad-news story in the half-century since then.
So, sorry Denny -- no bobblehead.
Detroit Tigers graphic
