Word: game
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...organ lessons on the side, the heavy-handed elder McLain was a semipro shortstop in his youth. He started Denny on his lessons early?both at the keyboard and on the diamond. Denny had trouble deciding which he liked best, the organ or baseball. "He'd be having a game in the park across the street," his mother remembers, "and he'd call Time!' and run into the house and play a couple of songs on the organ. Everybody would have to wait for him, and he'd play so loud they all could hear him." Says Denny: "I practiced...
...reputation as an antic oddball. But out of his restless energy he has also managed to build another kind of record entirely. When he is not cracking wise or acting up, Denny McLain throws baseballs for the Detroit Tigers. In a summer when pitchers are dominating the big-league game, Denny is, in fact, dominating the pitchers. A few fans still call him "Super Flake" or "Mighty Mouth," but the sneers stop when he steps up on the mound. This season, as never before, Denny has been putting his muscle where his mouth...
...Tigers' star righthander has started 36 games, finished 25, struck out 243 batters and allowed just 64 earned runs, or an average of 1.95 per nine-inning game. Last week, against the Minnesota Twins, he scattered nine hits, struck out twelve, and coasted to an 8-3 victory?his 28th of the year against only five losses. With perhaps five starts still ahead of him, McLain has already surpassed the best single-season performances of Carl Hubbell, Bob Feller, Warren Spahn, Whitey Ford and Sandy Koufax. No one has approached his performances in 16 years, and just two more victories...
...rookie pro, McLain came within one run of making it all the way to the White Sox in the spring of 1963. Unable to choose between Denny and another promising young pitcher, Bruce Howard, Chicago Manager Al Lopez decided to let them fight it out in an intrasquad game. Howard won 2-1 and got the job; McLain was put on waivers and claimed by Detroit for a piddling $8,000, an indignity that triggered the terrible McLain temper. He still gets mad when he thinks about it: "Isn't that a hell of a way to make a decision...
...matured on the mound, he still had his problems off it. It was a regular occurrence for an angry McLain to bash his eyeglasses against the dugout wall (which is one reason why he now wears contacts). In Baltimore, when he was taken out of a game, he threw the ball at his manager and tossed his glove at the dugout. His control that day was so bad that the ball sailed over the dugout roof and into the stands...