THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 8, 1994 TAG: 9407080736
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TOM ROBINSON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines
In Sioux Falls, S.D., where he moved from Chicago 10 years ago to live life on a smaller scale, Donn Clendenon swears he is ``just another old Joe.''
But on the main stages where Clendenon played major league baseball for 12 seasons in the '60s and '70s, and especially in New York, where he was the Most Valuable Player in the 1969 World Series for the Miracle Mets, Clendenon remains in memory a ballplayer with a big-time legacy - and a strange irony attached to him.
In the Mets' 4-1 Series rampage past the shocked Baltimore Orioles, Clendenon hit three home runs. He drove in four runs, scored four times and compiled a .357 batting average.
Clendenon had spent years sandwiched between Willie Stargell and Roberto Clemente in the lineup of the Pittsburgh Pirates, a team that racked up 90 or more victories three times from 1962 to 1966 without winning a National League pennant.
But less than a year after he had officially retired, then relented and joined the first-year Montreal Expos - and then was traded to the Mets in mid-June - Clendenon achieved the crowning glory of his career in a Series that has left an indelible mark in New York.
``This team is very close to my heart,'' Clendenon said Thursday from Sioux Falls, where he is an attorney with Interstate Audit Corp., which deals with trucking and interstate commerce. He will be in town this weekend for the
appearance of 15 of the Miracle Mets at a banquet, golf tournament and Saturday night exhibition game at Harbor Park.
``There was a wealth of young, talented pitchers and a couple guys who played fairly good defense. The offense just needed a little boost, and fortunately I was able to provide that little boost.''
In 72 games, Clendenon hit 12 home runs and knocked in 37 runs as the Mets charged through the final two months to win the East Division and their first - and Clendenon's only - National League pennant.
Clendenon hit two home runs off Dave McNally and one off Mike Cuellar in the World Series. His third came off McNally in the Game 5 clincher, a two-run blast that followed the famous ``shoe polish'' incident, in which it was proven that Cleon Jones was hit by a pitch by showing the umpire the black smudge on the ball.
The next batter in the sixth inning, Clendenon homered to pull the Mets to within 3-2 and transfer the momentum. A home run by Al Weis tied it in the seventh, and two more runs in the eighth secured the Mets' 5-3 victory and their championship.
Clendenon's heroics are boldly etched in history, though the behind-the-scenes machinations that brought him to New York in the first place are musty with age.
Clendenon was chosen by the Expos in the expansion draft, but then he was traded to the Houston Astros in January 1969 as part of a deal for Rusty Staub. However, after he met with Houston general manager Spec Richardson and manager Harry Walker, Clendenon announced his retirement in late February.
``I decided I didn't want to play with the Astros, so I retired,'' said Clendenon, who became a lawyer in 1975. ``I didn't like their management. I had very little respect for them.
``Then all hell broke loose.''
Houston wanted the deal nullified, but commissioner Bowie Kuhn, in deference to the Expos building their entire initial marketing campaign around the red-headed Staub - Le Grand Orange - allowed Staub to stay in Montreal and ordered the Astros and Expos to work out other compensation for Clendenon.
But in a twist, Kuhn also ruled that Clendenon remained Montreal property, which was magnified when Clendenon came out of ``retirement'' that May and suited up for Montreal for $50,000, or $14,000 more than the aborted deal he had with Houston.
His fate improved even further on June 15, the trading deadline, when Clendenon was sent from a club that was 23 1/2 games behind the Cubs in the National League East to one that was 30-26, 8 1/2 back. The Mets went 70-36 the rest of the way.
``It was just spectacular to see these young kids mold themselves into winning combinations,'' Clendenon said. ``Those kids did not believe they could lose.''
Far from a kid anymore, Clendenon will be 59 on July 15. He said he has eagerly participated in many events of the '69 Mets' 25th anniversary tour, though in the early stages of the reunion he admits he was skeptical about the public demand for the team.
They gathered for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade last year, and Clendenon remembers the negative reaction to the spectacle of a Mets float crawling through the streets of New York City.
``They started booing the Mets float,'' Clendenon recalled. ``But then they realized that it was the '69 Mets, and all the boos turned to cheers. New York has a love affair with this team.''
And so with Clendenon, one of the largest Cupids of them all. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
MIKE ROEMER
Donn Clendenon will take the field with other former Mets on
Saturday at Harbor Park.
by CNB