McLain will get 'life sentence'
By FRED DOWN
UPI Sports Writer
NEW YORK (UPI) — Denny McLain's sentence will be for life—no matter what Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn decides.
The suspended Detroit Tiger pitcher may be reinstated in the near future and told that he can resume his baseball career "free of taint." Not so. Denny will carry the scars of the current scandal as long as he lives. Nor will time lessen the wounds he has inflicted on himself.
At 25, Denny could pitch another 10 to 15 years. He could win 30 games again and wind up his career with 200, 300 or even 400 victories.
But life in baseball will never be the same again for Denny because he committed the one sin which his peers will never forgive. He dragged baseball's good name into the gutter from which it was lifted 50 years ago. He linked baseball to a gambling scandal.
Every sport has its own "thing." Pro football thrives on its organized violence. Hockey players have their love affair with pain. Boxing's code is that a real champion loses his title face down. Baseball's "thing" is that no gambling scandal should touch it.
Will Never Forget
Relatively disinterested observers may scoff at it but Denny will learn over the years that baseball men will not forget. They will remember just as they have remembered Joe Jackson, Chick Gandil, Ed Cicotte, Claude Williams, Buck Weaver, Swede Risberg, Happy Felsch and Fred McMullin for a half century.
These were the members of the Chicago White Sox who were charged with a conspiracy to fix the 1919 World Series with the
Cincinnati Reds. They were tried by a federal grand jury in Chicago and acquitted but that made no difference to Judge Kenesaw (Mountain) Landis, baseball's first commissioner. On the very night of their acquittal, Judge Landis banned them from baseball.
But that was only the beginning of the lifetime sentence. Long past an age when their playing careers would have ended, the eight were still paying the price for their alleged involvement with gamblers. Their names were stricken from many of baseball's "official" record books. They were never invited to Old Timers' Day celebration. None can ever be elected to the
M. E. (Bill) Easton, assistant professor of physical education at the University of Kansas, and Wes Santee, one of the top long distance runners in the mid-1950's at KU, have joined the Kansas City Royals to instruct them in the fundamentals of running.
KU helps Royals
Easton was track coach at KU from 1947 to 1965 and developed eight Olympians, including Santee.
"We feel that with the success we've had teaching other phases of athletics we can do the same with the Royals," Easton said.
He said that some of the same techniques of proper running which were used in track could also be used by the ball players running after a fly ball or sprinting around the bases.
8 KANSAN Feb. 26
1970
"If we can add a half-step of speed to the players," Easton said, "I think we will have done a good job."
Easton and Santee joined the Royal's staff in Arizona last Monday and will be with them for a week.
Hall of Fame although two or three may have been good enough to be elected.
Years later when both were old men, Ty Cobb walked into a liquor store operated by Jackson. Cobb walked around the shop for 15 minutes without any recognition from Jackson. Then he asked his old rival if he hadn't recognized him.
Insists on Innocence
"Sure, I did," said Jackson, who batted .375 in the 1919 World Series and insisted he was innocent of any wrongdoing. "But I didn't think you would want to talk to me."
"The thing that makes me most proud," said Frick, "is that there never was a hint of scandal during my term of office."
How big an offense has Denny committed against the baseball establishment?
McLain's sentence—that of his peers—will become more severe as time goes by. Now Denny wants to clear up his debts and resume his career as a super star. He may be reinstated by Kuhn. But he will be hounded for the rest of his life. Newsmen, TV
But, along the way, how could you forget that primary responsibility to the game? How could you let yourself and baseball become involved in that shadowland
Poor Denny, you had so much. No one resents a young businessman ballplayer making all he can on the side. No one resents that you played the organ in Las Vegas night spots or that you ran a paint company. No one resents that you fly your own airplane or were forming an advertising agency. No one even cares much about the unpaid bills.
men and radio broadcasters will mark the fifth, the 10th, the 20th, the 30th, etc., anniversaries of Denny's suspension and tell the story all over again for new generations of baseball fans.
Had So Much
which it had avoided for so long? How could a smart guy like you play such a fool?
You have shown baseball three faces—that of the fireball, that of the flake and that of the fool. You have thrilled us with your fireball career on the field and amused us with your flaky remarks and attitudes.
But it's that third face, the face of the man who involved baseball in its first gambling scandal in a half century, which will never be forgotten.
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