Denny McLain: From Cy Young Dominance to Crime and Scandal

On March nineteenth, nineteen eighty four, former Major League Baseball pitcher Denny McClain is arrested on charges of drug trafficking, embezzling, and racketeering. He was the last pitcher to win thirty games in a season. He was an MVB and two time Cy Young Winner, but regular scambling and rule breaking and chasing the almighty dollar after his arm gave out led him from superstardom to prison. And today we're going to find out what led this World Series champion to end up in a prison sale today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide as you daily learn more about sports history, increasing your sports knowledge. In today's trivia, question to listen out for is how many pitchers have won thirty games in a season in Major League Baseball history. Listen throughout the episode to find the answer it. If you miss, that's it, I will give it to you at the very end. So Dinny was born and grew up on the South side of Chicago, and he was a natural athlete and showed flashers when he started to play baseball at the age of eighteen and led his high school team to two Catholic League championships and would go on to sign as an amateur free agent with the Chicago White Sox, hoping to stay close to his family. But unfortunately, after one year. At the time back in the sixties, if a player was not called up to the majors, they could be claimed by another team. That's exactly what happened, and the Detroit Tigers snatched him up and within a year he would be making his first Major League debut against the Chicago White Sox, where he allowed one earned run and seven hits, but also hit his very first home run. But as it happens with the young pitchers, he was sent back down to the miners the next year to work on his craft, and he would eventually get called up to the majors in nineteen sixty five, where he would stay as a relief pitcher and continue to work his way up and have a sixteen and sixth record that first year really standing out, and the next year he would actually make the All Star team for the first time, winning twenty games that year and pitching with a three point nine erra. Now the following year he struggled a little bit more, had a seventeen and sixteen record and had an injury into some of his toes and the Tigers needed one more game to win the playoffs, and unfortunately he lost that game and they missed playoffs by one game. But the following year was known as the Year of the Pitcher. Now we've talked about this in the previous episode. Is what led to a couple of rule changes to help increase offense in baseball following the nineteen sixty eight season, and that one we really focused on Bob Gibson as they changed the pitching mound because of how good he was. But it wasn't only Bob Gibson. We mentioned Denny McLain in that as he became the thirteenth pitcher to win thirty games in a season. That may not seem like a lot, but it hasn't happened since nineteen thirty four, and it hasn't happened since, And the player that's won them most all time was Cy Young with thirty six, but he would finish the season with thirty one wins and six losses. Within the ray of one point nine six. He threw twenty eight complete games, six shutouts, and pitched over three hundred innings, striking out over two hundred and eighty batters and only walking sixty three. Now as era didn't match Bob Gibson's one point twelve ray, but his win stood out and he actually won the al MVP as well as the al Cy Young. And he didn't stop there, as the Detroit Tigers were able to make it through the playoffs and win the nineteen sixty eight World Series, where he pitched in three games, losing game one in Game four, but came going out in game six giving a performance to help guide them to a Game seven where they would win a World Series title. And at this time McClain was on top of the world. He couldn't have a better season and have a better outcome, and not only that. Weirdly, he was a great organ player and he would show up playing the organ on different talk shows on TV. He was a showman. He was cocky, he was able to talk elegantly and people wanted to hear him. He actually released albums of him playing the organ. It's crazy to think about that happening. And in the following year he had another Cy Young wasn't as good. Remember, they made a change the following year, moving the pitching mound, but he still won twenty four games and had ERA of two point eight, winning back to back youngs. But this is where gambling started to kind of get in the ear of him again. I say again because he actually started as a numbers runner as a teenager when he was in high school for different bookies in the Chicago area, so he had ties to a lot of different gambling rings. And this really started the downfall because it wasn't only that he was a great pitcher, because his pitching was starting to fall off. He was great for those two seasons. He was one of the most dominant pitchers of all time, but he was also pitching complete games and using his arm out as he was pitching over forty games a season, throwing over three hundred innings, and his life quickly changed. Quickly changed after his cy Young seasons, and in nineteen seventy, Sports Illustrated and Penthouse both published articles relating McLean to bookmaking activities. And he actually had a foot injury in nineteen sixty seven, And remember that foot injury we talked about. Nineteen sixty seven, Sports Illustrated actually had a source that said this was related to organized crime that stomped on his foot for not paying a lost bet. And as we talked about our previous episode where Buie Koon was, the Baseball commissioner suspended Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle for after their careers were over, just being a spokesperson for casino were suspended. Of course, hearing McLain's ties to sports betting meant that he was suspended indefinitely. It was then set for three months, but he would return mid season, but struggled to get back to his form, and in September the Tigers suspended him for dowsing a reporter with water for seven games, and then the Commissioner Baseball suspended him again for carrying a gun on a team flight. He ended the season with a win loss record of three to five, and then he would be traded to the Washington Senators, and the Senators manager at the time was Hall of Fame player Ted Williams, and they disagreed. McLain was a player that liked to pitch a lot and liked to pitch every four games, but Ted Williams was trying a new strategy to give his pitchers more rest and McClain says This hurt his arm because his arm needed to be continuously moving, and he would end the season going ten to twenty two, and then again the following season would be traded to Oakland. In that season be traded to the Atlanta Braves, where it would end his career. He played nine seasons in the Major League Baseball and in two of those seasons he won fifty five games. Games in his career, he won one hundred and thirty one during those two seasons. He was one of the best pitchers ever. But it was a short time, but he made the most of it, winning two Cy Young's three All Star appearances in a World Series. Not many players can say they won any of those, but he was able to do that. So after he was done with baseball, he had a little bit of money and he was trying to become a businessman. He bought a paint and carpet company, but it failed, leaving him in massive debt and he was continuously mismanaging money and also was really into gambling, losing money throughout the times, and he began to have health issues as he ballooned over three hundred pounds and in nineteen sixty seven he got his first run in with the law when he was arrested for drug possession, though the charges were layer dropped, he continued to hang out with criminals and be involved in gambling with questionable business dealings. Then in the nineteen eighties, he partnered with mob connected individuals smuggling and distributing cocaine and this got him on the Fbadah radar where he bought a company that was failing but had a great pension plan for its employees and out of nowhere, they had twelve million dollars in their pension and when they finally arrested him there was only nine million. Three million dollars were missing and found out that he had been using it to try to help the business but also help his pocket as well, and this was a major federal crime. And along with the trafficking and embezzling, he was evolved in racketeering, loan sharking, and extortion with his ties to organized crime using threat to violence to collect debts. Then in nineteen eighty five, with overwhelming evidence, he was convicted of drug trafficking, embezzling, and racketeering, meaning he was running an organized crime operation and he was giving a sentence of twenty three years in prison, although he would not serve that. He would only end up serving thirty months in prison because on appeals he would have his conviction overturned and was given a plea deal of time served so he could get out. So he still admitted to the crime but didn't have to serve the whole time. And I rammed because he always liked a rhyme. I know that's too much now. After this, he would actually go on to become a sports talk radio in the Detroit area as he was still a major name in that area. He signed autographs at different signing events in seven to eleven's But in nineteen ninety two, his oldest daughter was killed in a drunk driving accident. Was left him emotionally torn and really had him dive into his indulgence even more and get him back into his illegal ways. In nineteen ninety four, he was convicted of Monday laundering, mail fraud, and conspiracy for another financial scheme. This time he was sentenced to six years in prison. Now this time he had to serve his full term, but he cleaned up his image wrote a book in two thousand and seven that said, I told you I wasn't perfect and got back on the radio a little bit. Now he does lots of baseball signings and baseball appearances. Doesn't look like he's scheming anymore, as he's almost sixty years old, and if you see pictures of him, he's not in great health. He's still heavily overweight, but he still appears on different talk shows. In twenty nineteen, he actually launched a podcast called No Fillers Sports, which is their last episode, which was released in twenty twenty. Now, Denny McLain had a rough life, but it didn't have to be rough. He made decisions that got him out of baseball. He made decisions that were not for him and trying to and I understand after baseball, it's tough to find a career. It happens for a lot of players. After you get you do sports your entire life and you're in your prime of your life for an average person in your thirties, and you have no work experience, you have no business experience. All you know how to do is throw baseball and you have to go out in the real world and get a job. It's hard to do. And what happens is a lot of these players have millions of dollars. They invest it with people they think know what they're doing, but they don't know. They usually invest it with friends and family, and that money goes away because they don't know how to handle their money. Lots of times, if you invested their money in some simple investments, they could retire and do nothing the rest of their life and live a good life. But it's not what happens. Usually. Usually they use all their money while they're playing. When they retire, they think, oh, I'll have a job, but it doesn't pay as well and they have to do things shady sometimes. Just like Danny McClain. I love that he seems to have turned his life around now at the later stage in his career. I hope that stays because I hope he has success because his stretch in baseball was incredible. It's one of those maybe he'll have a redemption at the very end, but who knows. Sometimes when someone's chasing that money forever, they'll just keep chasing it. And I want to thank you for listening to Today's Daily Sports History. If you like this, please neiseve us a common or review wherever you're listening, let us know what you think about players that just waste away all their money and come back tomorrow for more daily sports history. And did you catch the answer today's trivia question how many baseball players have ever pitched a thirty game season, And the answer is thirteen, with Denny's nineteen sixty season being the last one in baseball history and probably will be the last one ever as baseball has changed, using more relief pitchers and spreading out pitching days for rest saving pitchers to pitch longer into their careers, but not reach that almighty thirty win total.