Dave McNally

[Dennis Gaub]

Hello,

Greetings from Billings, Montana, hometown of Dave McNally. Briefly, I'm a book author (born and raised in Montana and a sportswriter once upon a time) now working on a book about Dave, with emphasis on his role in the groundbreaking 1975 Seitz labor decision. And how his basic integrity and character led him to agree to have his name added to Andy Mesersmith's on the arbitration case. With, of course, a nod to Curt Flood for taking the reserve clause all the way to the Supreme Court in 1970. If anyone has any Dave McNally stories to share, I'd love to hear from you. Thanks-Dennis Gaub

[Number5]

Still my favorite moment in sports:

[RZNJ]

Just this weird thing which you probably already know.  McNally was involved in one of the best Oriole trades ever.  McNally, Rich Coggins, Bill Kirkpatrick for Ken Singleton and Mike Torres.

McNally had to check into the hospital that off-season for a case of the hiccups that wouldn’t stop.   I believe he was in the hospital for a week and said he had them for 3 weeks.

[WillyM]

Dave McNally had the best ERA of any of the Oriole starting pitchers who were healthy when the 1966 World Series came around.  That prompted Manager Hank Bauer to name McNally as the starter for Game 1 of the World Series.

As I recall, the governor of Montana proclaimed the day of Game 1 as Dave McNally Day in the state.  Unfortunately, that seemed to create some extra pressure on McNally, who had a rough go of it in that game, walking five and giving up two hits in 2 1/3 innings.  He was charged with two runs and was probably lucky it wasn't more, but Moe Drabowsky shut the Dodgers down from that point.  The Orioles won that game, then Jim Palmer and Wally Bunker pitched shutouts in Games 2 and 3.

McNally came back to start Game 4 and finished the Series by recording another shutout.  The Orioles set a World Series record which still stands, by shutting out the Dodgers in 33 consecutive innings.

I remember that after Game 4, McNally expressed relief, saying "They  told me I'd be the goat of the Series if I gave one run."  (This was back in the days when "goat" had a very negative connotation in sports, rather than being an acronym for "Greatest Of All Time," which is what it has now come to mean.)

[mrbig1]

Dave McNally was my hero as a child. I'm a lefthander just like him.

[SemperFi]

Don't forget about the hiccups, how anyone can endure 12 days of it is amazing!!

[WillyM]

I looked through Gordon Beard's book, "Birds on the Wing," written about the 1966 Orioles, to see if I could find any more information about McNally.

Beard mentioned something I hadn't realized.  McNally's difficulties in the first game weren't necessarily so much due to jitters from pitching in his first World Series game or from having the weight of an entire state's expectations on his shoulders.  His problem stemmed from the fact that the pitcher's mound at Dodger Stadium, tailored to the desires of the Dodger pitching staff, had an exceptionally steep slope, and Dave had trouble adjusting to it.

Moe Drabowsky, who relieved McNally in Game 1 and went on to become a World Series relief pitching hero by striking out 11 batters, including six in a row at one point, commented later that he would like to thank "the groundskeeper at Los Angeles, who made the slope so great Dave McNally had a tough time adjusting to it.

Apparently McNally had thrown his pregame warmup pitches on the sidelines next to the Orioles' dugout, a fairly common practice in those days.  The pitching rubber next to the dugout wasn't built up like the mound in the center of the diamond.

Drabowsky had warmed up in the bullpen, where the mound was built up the same as the one on the field, so he didn't have the same difficulty adjusting that McNally had.

By voicing his complaint, McNally was helpful to Jim Palmer, scheduled to pitch the next day.  Rather than warming up on the sidelines, Palmer warmed up on the bullpen mound before Game 2.  He went on to pitch a shutout.

One other detail I thought of regarding McNally's career - only once in major league history have two pitchers from the same club hit grand slams in the same postseason, and McNally was one of the two.  In 1970, Mike Cuellar dropped a grand slam into the right-field seats in Minnesota during Game 1 of the American League playoff series, and then McNally belted one at Baltimore in Game 3 of the World Series.