The Card King Sports and Variety Show Sept 20 2025 Guest Denny Mclain

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Car King here right come. Hello, sports fans, sports collectors,
and all hobbyists. Welcome to The Car King Sports and
Variety Show. I am your host, the Catman, Brian Catequit
aka the car King. We are live on ABC's k
m e T fourteen ninety AM dot com. You're number
one spot right here for news and talk on the

(00:33):
West Coast. I thank everyone for tuning in this morning
on a telephone line. I welcome back to the program
after five years, nineteen sixty eight Major League Baseball, Cy
Young and MVP winner, Tigers pitching legend. We welcome in
Denny McClain. Denny, great to have you back.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Brian. It's nice to be with you. Hope things are well.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Everything's going well, and it's really an honor for me. First,
let me ask everything going on well for you? How
you doing?

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah, I'm doing well. I've been you know, I'm eighty
one now, so I got the aches and pains of
an eighty one year old, but I mentally I'm okay.
I'm still doing about seventy to eighty card shows a
year and doing awful lot of other appearances and what
have you, and having a great time as long as
they're going to leave me on this earth. I'm going

(01:24):
to do the best I can. I've got fourteen grandchildren,
so I got a lot to take care of.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
Unbelievable. And you know when I met you, I met
you at a card show, so I want to task you.
So you're still doing the card shows. When is your
next appearance for everyone listening.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Oh yeah, let me get a plug in. I'm going
to be at the Hillsdale County Agricultural Society Fair. Now,
that's just south of Jackson, Michigan. It's about an hour
and twenty minutes outside of Detroit, and it's in one
of the great counties in the state of Michigan, hills
It's the Hillsdale County Fair and we start there tomorrow

(02:00):
and we go through next Sunday, and if you're in
the area, just come on by ask where we are.
It's a it's a very very big, big, successful fare
and we've been doing it the last couple of years
and have had a great time seeing a lot of
people that we have seen over the years. They you know,
I'll tell you. The surprising thing is, and a little

(02:21):
bit of shock from time to time, is when a
grandfather brings his son and that's and that son brings
another son or a daughter. I mean, we've had three
and four generations from time to time at some of
these shows, depending upon, of course when they got married,
what age. But it's it's incredible the generations that we've

(02:42):
seen in various parts of the country, coasts, the coast,
and it's just a lot of fun. The stories, the
pictures they took the first time they came through or
the second time they came through. We've had a ball
with it, and we do a lot of games with
the kids, give them baseballs and what have you. In
So if you get in the area you want a
couple of laughs in a good time and smell a

(03:04):
lot of pig and horses, this is the place to
be for the next seven days.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
There you go. We're talking with the legendary pitcher Denny McClain,
who's with us this morning. You know, Denny, let we
have to touch on nineteen sixty eight, you know, a
year in which you captured the attention of the entire
sports world with your thirty one wins and six loss record. Now,
I know it's a while back, but I have to
ask you, what did you do differently that year that

(03:30):
you didn't do in sixty six, sixty seven.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Well, sixty you know. Sixty five I won sixteen games.
That was really my first, real serious first year in
the major leagues, and I won twenty. In sixty six
sixty seven I won seventeen and then got hurt with
about six with about six weeks to go. And then
of course the sixty eight season. But I will tell
you the difference, and it gradually builds up to this.

(03:55):
I used to be a bowler, and when I in
nineteen sixty six, my wife told me one time, she said,
you know, you need to get out of the house
more d D because I'm a keyboard player. And I
was starting to go back to the keyboards a lot,
and lo and behold, I started bowling again. First of all,
the first week I went out and did ten lines
a day, and then eventually I got up to where

(04:17):
I was doing one hundred and twenty lines per day.
And I think that all of that work out with
my legs, my breathing ability, the things that needed to
be done with the same things as a pitcher and
a bowler. I got my legs in such great shape.
I was able to pitch complete games, and that's what

(04:38):
made the big difference. That was a sensational time and
we had lots of fun when all of that started
to happen.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
And Denny, you know, you know it was meant for you.
I feel it was meant for you to be a
star because you know, even sixty five, I mean, you
were setting you set a league record, I believe for
relief pitchers seven consecutive batters. You retired to sixty six,
You made it to the All Star Game, and you
retired nine of your you know, the batters you face.

(05:07):
So this was sixty five sixty six. I mean you
were destined to be a star early on.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
Well, I don't know about destiny, but I'll tell you
one of the biggest thrills I ever had. I graduated
from Mount Carmel High School in nineteen sixty two, Catholic
school in Chicago, and in the sixty sixth All Star Game. Now,
this was a huge thrill for me. I found myself
and this was a shock. As a matter of fact,

(05:34):
somebody said, wasn't just sitting on the bench for a
couple of minutes. We've got somebody wants to come over
and interview, you will as I sat down lo and behold,
I sat right next to Sandy Kofax. I mean, Kofax,
you know, at that point in time in his career
was the rage of Major League baseball. He's the guy
that beat everybody. At any time he only needed one run,
he won one to nothing. If he needed too, he

(05:54):
won two to one. He was he was majestic, some
people would say. But he talked for at least thirty
thirty five minutes about pitching, about the travel, about the
things you really needed to talk about for a guy
who just got to the big leagues just a couple
of years earlier. And he gave me a lot of
good advice, namely the best one was keep your mouth

(06:16):
shut and things go. Things get better every day.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
But I mean, you know, to win this cy Young
back to back like you did Denny sixty eight sixty nine,
I mean I looked at a list at that time.
There wasn't many pitchers in the American League that won
back to back Young Award winners. It was mostly the
National League pitchers.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah, I think Kofax, certainly, I don't know who else, right,
you know, it's you know, you gotta be lucky. You
gotta be healthy, you got to be playing with a
good team. I know. I went one year in winter ball.
I went to Puerto Rico and played down there. I
think I won fourteen to fifteen games down there during

(06:59):
winter ball. And all of that said, what I was
trying to do, I wanted to win. I wanted to
be consistent. Yes, I wanted to be a twenty game winner,
like we all do when we get to the big leagues.
And one of my great idols, and people probably will
never remember this name with the Chicago Cubs because I
grew up in Chicago, was a guy named Bob Rush.

(07:22):
Bob was the right handed pitcher with the Cubs, and
the only reason he was my hero is because my
dad we went to one ballgame in my entire teenage years.
My dad died when I was thirteen, and we went
to one game together and my dad caught a foul
ball off the bat of Bob Rush. So Bob Rush
became my hero and I wore number seventeen because of

(07:45):
Bob Rush. Bob didn't have a great long career, but
as far as I was concerned, he was the guy
that made me do certain things and I was very
happy with the things that I learned from him in kofex.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
Oh, I did not know that. It's interesting now. Also,
Mantle was one of the idols, right.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
Oh yeah, listen, Mantle was everybody's idol. I mean listen.
I never thought I'd be a pitcher in the big Lags.
I never ever thought that yet That's where I was
probably the most successful when I was in high school.
But the hitting thing was Mickey Mantle, switch hitter. Everybody,
everybody in the world who could play baseball wanted to

(08:22):
hit from the left side, in the right side. Everybody
wanted to wear number seven. Everybody wanted to either hit
third or fourth in the lineup. We all wanted to
be Mickey Mantle. And the first time I met him,
and I'm not kidding, the first time I met him,
I turned around and there he was. Somebody said, you
wanted to meet me? And I literally started it off

(08:42):
with his Mickey Mantle. I'm going to tell you what.
I'm not sure, but I think I whizzed in my pants.
I'm not sure, but I think I did.

Speaker 1 (08:57):
But didn't you didn't you give up hitch to Mantle
to hit a home run? What was it his five
hundred and thirty was it this thirty fifth or something
like that.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
Five hundred and thirty five. He needed one more to
go ahead of Jimmy Fox. Jimmy Fox was number three.

Speaker 1 (09:12):
Story, yeah, tell us the story.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
I'm going to give it to you, and Fox was
number three in all time home run Nicky needed one
more home run to do the same thing. And so
this was the last game Mickey was going to play
in Tiger Stadium, and we had just clinched the pennant
and this would have been my thirty first win if
I win the ballgame. So we went out there and

(09:36):
I had a six to one or six to two
lead late in the ballgame seventh eighth inning, I think
it was the eighth, and I yelled down the mantel.
I said, hey, you be ready, and he looked at
me like he had just seen the deer in the
middle of the highway, and I said, no, be ready,
be ready. So I threw him a fastball about sixty
miles an hour on an arc and he looked at

(09:58):
me like he saw two deers. Now at that point
in time, he could not believe what I was trying
to set up him to do. I threw the next
the second pitch right too. But then I just in
my thinking a little bit, because I said, geez, he
took two changeups sixty miles an hour. He's not a
Rhodes scholar. I got to tell him more. So I

(10:22):
yelled down, I said, where the hell do you want
the pitch? So then he put his left down route
and over the inside part of the plate where he
hit most of his home runs from the left side,
and he fouled one out of the ballpark. And that
ball may still be going down Michigan Avenue in Detroit
and lo and behold. I yelled down to him. I says,
if you want it again, there, and he moved it

(10:44):
over just the hair about maybe six inches, and he
hit one out of the stadium over the lights, and
those lights are really high, and he hit the home run,
and he got slaps on the back from everybody. Everybody
shook his hand. I mean, the ballpark was in the
standing ovation, deservedly so. And it was quite a day

(11:06):
for me because I figured one day I may get
a chance to go into Hall of Fame. I don't
really believe that's going to happen, but I said that
Jim Price, who was to catcher that day. Because Price
got mad. He said, I'm not going to give anybody
a pitch to hit out of the ballpark. Nobody does
that for me. I said, Jim, you're a one eighty
hitter compared to Mickey Mantle three hundred. I said, come on, now,

(11:28):
let's not take it personally. Just tell Mickey to be ready.
So we went and did the whole thing again. And
then when he hit the home run, it was one
of those shots you knew it was hit harder than most.
And as he went around the base, he flipped his
hand to me and his hat to me, and it
made my believe me at the time for a very
long time. It made by day.

Speaker 1 (11:51):
I mean, that is incredible. So you basically did Mantle
a favor number five thirty five. You know they say
Marison Mantle, eminem. Now we can link. We can say Eminem,
I'm McLean and Mantle.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
Well, I guess you could. But here's the thing I
also told Price. I forgot the line. I told Price.
I said, listen, the only way you and I are
getting in the Hall of Fame is if our names
are attached to his five hundred and thirty fifth home run.
It's going to say Nickey Mantle hit number five thirty five,
moving ahead of Jimmy Fox and Denny McClain and Jim

(12:23):
Price were the batteries that allowed him to hit that
number five thirty five. And that's exactly what happened. I mean,
he hit number five thirty five. In fact, he hit
one more, but he had certainly done the trick. He
made my day and made my career for me because
that was that was my shining moment as far as
I was concerned personally.

Speaker 1 (12:45):
And we're talking with the great Denny McLain nineteen sixty eight,
sixty nine Young Award Winner. He's on the telephone line
with us on Kate met Radio, and you know, Denny.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
Bryan, Bryan Bryan. Let me Brian one other thing about
that story. I forgot to tell you. One of the
funniest parts. Joe Peppotone was the next sitter. Joe Pepotone
came up and he took his left arm just like
Micky did and put it out over the plate and said,
let me have one of those pitches too. I want
that Mickey, Mino Gopher both send them, send me one

(13:15):
I'm going to be here next year. I'm your friend.
I'll make sure that you stay in the big Wig
for a long time. I said, what the hell's wrong
with you? He says, no, just show me that pitch,
throw me that pitch. And I said, yeah, Mickey, I said, Nicky,
I said, Joe, you're no Mickey Mantle. I said, I
don't think anybody suggested you were, so just get ready.

(13:36):
He said, okay. I said, I said it, and set
you a way that he could interpret it that I
was going to do it. I was going to throw
them a little flop piche and lo and behold, threw
them three fastballs around the hand, struck them out. The
game was over, and we wanted to stick them two,
I believe.

Speaker 1 (13:51):
I mean, that's unbelievable. But you know, Denny, I'm having
like a few minutes left with you. I want to
get a few in. That's sixty eight Tigers team. And
I was reading about that team, a talented group of individuals.
But is it true that, I don't know, for some
reason the team could not play well together.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
No, I don't think so at all. I believe, you know.
I think every once in a while you can have
a team with too many stars on it. I don't think.
I think maybe we approached it at one time, but
certainly it didn't hold us back from doing what we
needed to do. And that was when the Pennant remember this.
We had just had a lot of people got killed
in nineteen sixty seven during the riots in Detroit, and

(14:32):
we were the guys that were put out in the
streets to the schools, high schools, colleges, you named the
schools that we attended in some of the organizations, just
to try to quiet down and relax the town a
little bit. And we had guys going everywhere all the
way throughout the Midwest and certainly in Michigan, all over
the place. And people give us a lot of credit

(14:54):
for doing what we did that winner after the riots,
and that was doing our job only on the field,
but off the field with the general public. And we
had the greatest fans in the world, and they still
do in Detroit. We had the greatest fans in probably
in America.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
And you know, how is like, how is playing with
the al Ka line, the great al k line? How
is alk line? As as the person.

Speaker 2 (15:19):
I've always said this l k Line when he came
up late in the ball game seventh to eighth, ninth inning.
He was the best baseball player in the history of
the game. Al could drive in more runs, get on
the base more times, move the guy along the way.
He's supposed to move the guy along in a late

(15:39):
in the game, but if he had to, lk Line
was not afraid to bunt either. And I'll tell you this,
Without k Line, we probably would not have won the Pennant.
And he was out for a number of weeks that
year too, But when he came back, he was on fire.
He led the team to that Pennant and that World Series,
and he made sure that he was the guy that
was going to Lea and he made some serious talks

(16:02):
in the clubhouse. And I think that's pretty much pretty
much what had happened, what happened in that clubhouse then,
and Al turned the whole thing around, especially after the
first game when Gibson had struck out sixteen or seventeen guys,
because everybody thought he was unhittable. And I just made
the one statement, I said, listen, we don't start runs,
we can't win. Number two, Bob Gibson, I don't care

(16:23):
who it is could not beat our baseball team three times,
and he did not, And Denny.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
I got to ask you, you know, we have to
remember that that sixty eight year was historic, not only
because of your record, but because the Tigers were the
thirteen to come back from a three game deficit to
win the best of seven World Series. And what I
find thrilling is that, yes, you did lose to Gibson

(16:50):
two games, right, but you came back in one game
six and pulled the team, you know, out of that
deficit into the series. It's, you know, a chance, So
you really came through on the you know, on the
clinch there.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
Well, I think they would have hung me, shot me,
and I don't know what else it could have done
to me. But I had to win one game. I mean, boy,
oh boy. All they were asking me for is to
give them one game. And then we had two rainouts
during that game too. I mean, the game finished and
we had the lays twice during that game, and I
stayed in the game for nine innings because I was
not going to take any chances, and I had pretty

(17:26):
good stuff that day, and of course we wind up win.
In fact, I give up the one run in that
game in the ninth inning with two outs. That really
made me mad too. To go eight and two thirds
and not give up a run. You know that's a
personal thing, but boy, it really hurts.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
So I want to ask you this, how was it
playing for Ted Williams?

Speaker 2 (17:47):
Miserable?

Speaker 1 (17:49):
It was right because I heard I heard to play
for him Ted.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
Ted just did not like. First of all, he liked
to hit. That's what Ted did all of his life.
He was a great hitter, no question. I think he
was maybe the greatest hitter in the history of the game.
I don't know. I wasn't there, but I will tell
you he just didn't treat people well. He was tired
of being there because the ball club was awful and

(18:17):
Bob Short, the guy who owned it, wasn't Ted Williams's fault.
The ball club was bad. It was Bob Short because
Bob didn't have the money to go out there and
get some players, buy some players, get somebody out there,
find a couple of Klnes, find a couple of Hortons
and Mickey Stanleys and guys like that. But he couldn't
find them, couldn't have come up with the money to
do it. So we all played one hundred and sixty

(18:39):
two game scheduled that and that was, honest to God.
I've had some moments in my life, good and bad,
but this was the longest year in my life. This
losing every day and you knew you were going to
lose every day, was just the worst thing I've ever
been through.

Speaker 1 (18:58):
Yeah, so you, you and Williams did not get along
at all.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
Now, Willie, Willie Horton, Willie Horton and I got along
very well.

Speaker 1 (19:06):
Oh No, Williams, Ted Williams, you and him did not
get on well.

Speaker 2 (19:10):
Oh Ted, No, Ted, Ted and I didn't get along
well at all. We had constant arguments about pitching, about
guys pitching three days, four days, five days. He just
the thing about it is Ted abused people. And I'm
not talking about physically, I'm talking about verbally, and I
say those types that that type of pain is worse

(19:32):
than getting hit with a hammer. Because he just the
way he said things. And my father in law, who
was Lou Boudrou Hall of Famer, says the same thing.
When Lou was with us. Lou said, you're gonna have
a tough time with him, but keep the chin up.
And I tried to keep the chin up, which we did,
got through the season, and of course then I got
traded again.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
Yeah, you get You get traded in seventy two to
the Athletics, a team that had Reggie Jackson. And did
you like playing in California?

Speaker 2 (20:01):
Oh? Yeah, I loved California. I just I think it's super.
I think it's a great place to play ball. The
only thing that upset you in California because I pitched
pretty well there. And what happened was when they voted
for shares and I was there, I think like almost
a third of the season. They never got me a share.
They never sent me my check, so then I could

(20:24):
have recorded. Hey, listen, I got two World Series checks
that one.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
Yeah, but also that same year. So you go to
Oakland and then seventy two, then they trade you to
the Braves.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
Yeah. I was traded for Orlando Stata and I went
to Atlanta and got released. But I had had my arm.
I had severed my rotator cuff. That was my biggest problem.
It started to go in sixty late sixty eight, sixty
nine had just got worse and worse and worse, and
then finally in seventy seventy one, it had gone to hell.

(20:59):
I mean it just I could at times after pitching
a ball game, I could barely pick up literally barely
pick up a fork to eat. And so it got
pretty bad. And we didn't have any operations back there.
That's what a lot of people don't realize. We didn't
have any any operations back then. We didn't have one
that could have fixed that. And of course today they've

(21:21):
got a thirty five or forty minute operation that my
got in an hour and a half. You're you're, well,
you're probably going to go back to the Big Wings
and do your thing.

Speaker 1 (21:32):
And Denny, you know, what do you think of today's game?
You still follow the game?

Speaker 2 (21:37):
Oh? I followed the game. I go to about fifteen
or twenty games a year.

Speaker 3 (21:41):
I still enjoy the game. I watch it when I can.
And it's a different game than when we played. I mean,
they don't hit and run anymore. They don't run, they
don't they seldom get cut off, man, So it's more
of a home run baseball a game right now, it's

(22:02):
all home run and you know, guys hitting forty fifty
home runs. I mean, I think one day and I
don't think it's too long away that we're.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
Going to see somebody hit seventy five home runs.

Speaker 3 (22:13):
I really do. The pitching has gotten that bad.

Speaker 2 (22:18):
Every team seems.

Speaker 3 (22:18):
To have one guy, maybe a guy in a half,
and this five minuting thing. You'll never win a lot
of games by only pitch in five minutes or one
hundred pitches or one hundred and ten pitches, You'll never win.
You'll never have guys take control of the game again,
although they say we get to Deny and a bunch
of other guys cause the denis of baseball in the sixties,

(22:41):
because the pitchers took over the game. Listen, everything cyclical
and I don't know why the commissioner didn't see it,
why all those geniuses in the front office of baseball
didn't see it. I mean, it's cyclical everything. And if
they go back one hundred years, you'll see where the
cycle is always in the great Game of Baseball.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
I totally agree. And the website for everyone listening is
I Am Danny McClain dot com. There you can read
a lot about your history. And I didn't know. I'll
end it with this, I did not know that you
recorded two albums for Capitol records.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
I did. I did. I did two albums with Capitol,
both of them are pretty good, and I still play.
I was going to go back to the club circuit,
but a few years ago, a couple of years ago,
my wife died and I just kind of junked the
idea because she wasn't going to be around. I was
not going to hang out in the nightclub again. I
did that once. I loved it, loved to play, but

(23:39):
it wasn't exactly the style you want to go out in.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
Yeah, and I did not know that your father in
law was Hall of Fame shortstop lou but Row. It's
on the website. I did not know that.

Speaker 2 (23:49):
Yeah, yep. He As a matter of fact, just to
show you a coincidence is nineteen forty eight, he was
MVP in the American League. In nineteen sixty eight, I
was MVP. So we had a lot in that. Of course,
I used to whenever I'd see him around the house
or their house or our house, I'd always tell him,
I said, hey, Luke, I got to tell you something.

(24:09):
He says what I said. You know, I've been sleeping
with Jaron now for thirteen years and fourteen days, and
that was set off his whistles.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
I'll tell you, and Dddy, I gotta ask you the
toughest batter for you to pitch too.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
Who was it? I don't know. I's asked me a lot,
and I don't know the guy. If we just go
on the number of hits they had, it may be
Boot Powell it maybe, And I don't have any reason
to tell you why. But he got a lot of
bass hits off me. Another guy. You'll never believe this one,

(24:49):
Geene Michael. If you like every one of Gene Michael's
hips that he had in his career against me, they
would not get to center field. But I think he
had like four twenty five hits off me in his career.

Speaker 1 (25:03):
Fascinating stuff. Listen, what a great job. I really really
appreciate your.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
Time, Brian. It's always a pleasure to talk to you. Guys.
Call me anytime. I look forward to it.

Speaker 1 (25:13):
Oh, love it, love it. Denny, take care of yourself.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
Thanks guys and everybody out there, you get a chance,
come on down to Hillsdale, Michigan.

Speaker 1 (25:21):
Please go see the great Denny McClean in person. The
website I am Danny McClain dot com. Check it out
until next week, Happy collecting to all,