McLain Welcomed Staple for Induction Weekend Visitors

It s emotionally rough for me this weekend not being in Cooperstown and not seeing Denny McLain.

Today is the biggest day of the year for the Village of Cooperstown (NY) and the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Two new members of the game s most exclusive club are being welcomed in. Tampa native Fred McGriff, who starred for a half dozen MLB clubs during his 19-year career, is scheduled to give his induction speech this afternoon.

Scott Rolen, a World Series champion in 2006 as a member of the St. Louis Cardinals, joins McGriff as the other member of the Hall s Class of 2023.

Many thousands of baseball loyalists will have flocked to this tiny Upstate New York village to see the two newest hall of famers, and the dozens of other returning members. It s common to stroll up and down Cooperstown s Main Street this weekend and see many of baseball s greatest attractions.

For a fee, along with a handshake and a few minutes of direct eye contact, fans can snag an autograph, and then check off their bucket list having met their bubble gum card heroes. For most, these retired ballplayers keep their steady lines of well-wishers moving at a quick pace. But there s always an exception.

My baseball hurling hero Denny McLain is in a class of his own, when meeting his public where MLB s greatest happenings go to live on.

I can t be in Cooperstown this weekend. For reasons beyond my control, not reporting from where all eyes of the game are focused on today is rough. Since 1976, when my family moved to the Cooperstown area, I have missed but a handful of Induction Weekends.

As a nine-year-old watching my first World Series in 1968 on TV (games up until 1979 were played during the afternoon), I rooted for the Detroit Tigers to clobber the St. Louis Cardinals  and they did in seven games. My allegiance to the Tigers came earlier that summer.

That August, my mother took my brother Billy and I to our first New York Yankees game in the Bronx.

Living in Queens, a trip to ""The House That Ruth Built was a quick two-subway train transfer to 161st Street and River Avenue. On that August Sunday, New York was hosting the Tigers. A doubleheader (back then, you saw two games for one price of admission), the Yankees swept both games. However, Detroit would go on to capture the Fall Classic come October.

The big draw for the solid Tigers rosters in 1968 was pitching great Denny McLain. His individual performance that season ranks in my book as the single greatest in the game s history.

Just how fabulous was McLain in Detroit s championship season? In 1968, McLain was selected to the American League All-Star squad, collected the league s CY Young and MVP honors, won 31 games, pitched an astonishing 336 innings, whiffed 280 opposing batters, earned 28 complete games, and come October, joined in with teammates a champagne shower in their clubhouse in celebration of winning the World Series.

For that season, McLain was barely mortal. When he threw the last pitch of his career in 1972, his accolades are what legends are made of. Three-times an all-star, 131 victories over a 10-season span, a second consecutive American League Cy Young Award in 1969, and nearly 1,300 strikeouts.

That Tigers club of 1968 was special. Winning the American League East by 12 games ahead of the Baltimore Orioles, among the many talented teammates that had McLain s back that season, there were two future hall of famers. Al Kaline and Eddie Mathews added punch to Detroit s already powerful slugger-filled lineup that won 103 games during the regular season.

So, what seems to be one dozen years back, or more, I first saw McLain set up a table on Cooperstown s Main Street during an Induction Weekend. As the years have passed, McLain has set up his traveling souvenir shop, with offerings of signed jerseys, photographs, books, t-shirts, trading cards, and other unique items.

I ve mapped McLain s appearances on Main Street, in front of Rudy s Liquors. Down the street, make your first left, and I ve seen McLain setting up shop in the early morning hours on Induction Day next to the steps at The Tunnicliff Inn on Pioneer Street, and one year next to the front door at the Where It All Began Bat Company on Main Street. In recent years, including this weekend, the former Tigers hurler has been perched at 2 Doubleday Court  in the shadows of Historic Doubleday Field.

Baseball fans, several generations deep, each year are treated to McLain s presence. Long out of baseball before the free agency era began, attending autograph shows and accepting opportunities to meet fans in other venues is how McLain earns his living.

For his Cooperstown sojourn, MClain has an eight-to-nine-hour drive from his Brighton, Michigan home. Along with one of his closest friends Ty, they make the trip for Cooperstown s biggest weekend. Sometimes they ride in the same car, other years, depending on the volume of merchandise they are bringing, McLain and Ty take separate vehicles.

""I ve been coming to Cooperstown for a lot of years,"" said McLain earlier this week during an early morning telephone call.

Visiting Cooperstown each July for McLain is one of a minimum of 50 public appearances made. Throw in attending dinners and other invitations and the two-time Cy Young winner figures to be on the road for 75 or more total appearances.

""I hear from fathers and grandfathers, people of all ages. The fans are nice. They ask how I am, and what a nice time they are having. The most requested item I m asked for is what I call a stat ball. I write on all four pads of a ball my top statistics (I have a signed copy of McLain s autobiography  I Told You I Wasn t Perfect. On the book s second page McLain used 19 lines to properly autograph it).

Naturally, when approached by fans, McLain fields questions about the Tigers 1968 season. I m sure he s been asked and answered the same questions time and again, but I have never seen McLain demonstrate boredom in doing so.

As for registering 31 victories in 1968 (the last pitcher to do so and the first since Dizzy Dean did so in the 1934 season), McLain recently offered insight of his pursuing an unheard-of number of wins in a season.

""I was just trying to stay healthy that season. Once I reached 22 or 23 wins, that s when I started thinking about getting to 30. After the all-star break, then I put the full-court press on. It kept my engines running.

The Tigers championship in 1968, as McLain labels their success, was a 25-man roster effort. There s little doubt that he will be once again conveying this very thought today, his final day of the weekend in Cooperstown.

Baseball s ""Super Pitcher will pack up his souvenirs inside the Doubleday parking lot, and it s on to the next stop, where baseball fans can meet baseball history in the flesh. Talking to, meeting with, and scoring a personalized item as a symbol of a moment never to be forgotten, never gets old  for fans and McLain.