Keeps waiting, anticipating and expecting
McLain still confident he'll return to baseball
LAKELAND, Fla. (UPI)—Denny McLain has been suspended from baseball two weeks now.
"I feel," Denny McLain says, "my whole future has been blocked these past two weeks, and when a man has no future he has no reason for living."
Bone-chilling as that sounds, the general attitude of Detroit's indefinitely suspended 25-year-old pitcher is reasonably good.
He believes he'll be back in
baseball and has discovered he has a lot more friends than he ever realized. What bothers him most is that he is unable to defend himself publicly yet against charges reported by Sports Illustrated magazine that he was part of a bookmaking operation and associated with Mafia and Cosa Nostra types.
"I cannot say anything in my defense because I am under the complete jurisdiction of a federal grand jury in Detroit," McLain said, as he sat in the front room of his home.
"I realize people would like to know about those 'certain admin-
sions' I made to Mr. Bowie Kuhn, the baseball commissioner. That'll all come out. But I can't say anything about them now on account of the grand jury. Look, I want to play baseball more than anything else in the world. I miss the ballpark and all the guys. I'm eating my heart out sitting here knowing they're working out right this minute."
Stories already have begun to circulate that Denny McLain is dead broke, doesn't know where his next meal is coming from and is having trouble feeding his attractive dark-haired wife, Sharyn, who is the daughter of Hall of
Famer Lou Boudreau, and his three children, Kris 4, Dennis, 2, and Timothy, 1. The stories are not true.
"I am in a bad way financially and what I'm doing now is digging into what I have left, but we still have enough to eat," he says. "If this thing his suspension goes on for any length of time, I'll have to go to the clubs and entertain."
McLain referred to the offers he has had to play the organ in night clubs around the country. He got up from his chair, walked into another room and came back with a stack of offers he had received from night clubs, theatrical agencies and Las Vegas hotels. There were offers of all kinds, even to do a book.
The telegrams and letters keep pouring in.
Expecting what?
"Time weighs very heavily on my hands," McLain said. "My mind wanders all the time. I keep waiting, anticipating, expecting."
"I dunno," Denny McLain confessed. "I have to be optimistic, I can't be pessimistic. Since this thing happened I've had tears in my eyes a hundred times. I'm one of those guys who can't cry. If I could I would. It would help."
Uclans hold on to top spot