Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 26, 1994 TAG: 9404250018
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By SCOTT BLANCHARD STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In 1968, McLain won 31 baseball games for the Detroit Tigers; no pitcher has done that since. In '68, the late Richard M. Nixon was elected president. The two shook hands in the summer of '69 at the All-Star Game in Washington, D.C., a meet-and-greet session that did little for McLain, admittedly an "active" Democrat.
McLain flew into Roanoke on a private plane for a card show Sunday at the Civic Center on the day flags were at half-staff in honor of the former president, who died Friday night.
A man who seemingly has made it all the way back - once jailed for cocaine possession, loan-sharking and racketeering charges, McLain owns several businesses, has a politically driven radio show and a sports-talk television show in Detroit - spoke of a man who fell and tried to get back up.
"I still think [Nixon] should've been subjected to the same laws the rest of us are," said McLain, who turned 50 on March 29. "No one has ever done anything in this country, any crime, as [bad] as what he did as president of the United States.
"[But] he kept trying to redeem himself. I guess that's what life is all about, trying to make yourself better."
McLain, a large man with tousled, graying hair that insists on casting a thick lock down his forehead, appears to have succeeded. His humor is constant, from a quip here and there to his response to a fast-food clerk who informed him breakfast no longer was being served on a bright, breezy Roanoke morning.
"Breakfast isn't over until I say it's over," he said, mimicking Michael Douglas' unstable character in the movie "Falling Down."
McLain, however, is anchored and upright. He owns Peet Packing Company in Chesaning, Mich., and Dorville Chemical Company in Charlotte, N.C. Together they employ about 750 people. He owns three radio stations and a 106-station radio network in Michigan. His youngest son graduated from Western Michigan University on Saturday.
And he has his talk shows.
"I'm real busy - thank God," said McLain, who has cut way back on the number of card shows he does.
"I've been the other way. There's nothing worse than having time on your hands . . . "
Unless it's three hours of morning drive time in Detroit, when McLain brushes back at politicians instead of batters.
"A Democratic Rush Limbaugh," says Bill Cook, pilot of McLain's Peet Packing plane.
Which is?
"The real truth," McLain said.
Such as: President Clinton could use a kick in the pants when it comes to taxes and the administration's health care plan; McLain likes neither.
Baseball, McLain said, has careened off course. The year he won 31 games, 1968, was one of the most pitcher-dominated years in baseball history. McLain's earned run average that year, 1.96, ranked fourth in the AL.
"They have the worst umpires in the history of the game," he said. "They won't call the high strike. I'm talking high, belt-high.
"You can't pitch inside anymore . . . They're just a bunch of wusses out there today. I don't think the pitching is that bad, if they'd just give them that strike."
That would shorten games by 20 minutes to a half-hour, McLain said.
And what to do about players such as Cincinnati's Reggie Sanders, who recently charged the mound when he was hit by a pitch from Montreal's Pedro Martinez - even though that broke up a perfect game.
"I'm not saying [Sanders charging the mound] wouldn't have happened, but if it did happen, you would absolutely remember that he will come up again during the season, and he will be punished," said McLain, who thinks but can't be sure he pitched minor-league ball for Knoxville in Roanoke "about a thousand years ago."
"If he ran well, you would throw at his legs. We had the ball."
by CNB