The Mets have pulled off some interesting trade deadline deals through the years. Marcus Stroman being the most recent, as of 16 hours before the July 31 trade deadline. Fifty years ago the trade deadline was in the middle of June. Trades were really the only way a team could transform its roster midseason. There was no free agency—the largest contract in baseball that year was the $135,000 doled out to Willie Mays in San Francisco. As a result, trades could be spectacular and catch you by surprise.
The Mets had made only a couple of deadline week trades in their first seven seasons of existence—and both of those coming during Bing Devine’s transaction-happy 1967 seasons (two deals brought the Mets veterans Nick Willhite and Bob Hendley, both of whom pitched for the Mets during the Summer of Love and never appeared in another major league game). But in June of 1969 the Mets were in contention for the first time. The average age on the inexperienced Mets was 25; the Cubs were closer to 30. On the morning of June 15—a Sunday—the Mets stood 8 ½ games behind the first-place Cubs, and that was after Tom Seaver had beaten the Dodgers in Los Angeles. (The Cubs had beaten the Reds that day, with the win going to reliever Phil Regan, the 2019 Mets pitching coach. That can make a body feel old.)
The fact that the previously moribund Mets were within 10 games of a first place team on Father’s Day weekend—and had a winning record for the first time (30-25) was remarkable in its own right. The Mets could pat themselves on the back, play for second-place money, and concentrate on building toward some day when they might reach for that shiny ring. For a team that had never won more than 73 games, the 1969 Mets were pretty cocksure. They rolled the dice, but it was a calculated roll.
Donn Clendenon was a clubhouse lawyer. Almost. Clendenon had graduated from the prestigious African-American institution Morehouse College in his hometown Atlanta—Martin Luther King Jr. had been his “big brother” when Clendenon was a Morehouse freshman. Clendenon would study law at both Harvard and Duquesne Universities, but had to drop out of both because of the time and travel constraints of his current field of employment. (He completed his law degree from Duquesne in 1978, after his retirement from baseball.)
Though on an academic scholarship at Morehouse, the 6-foot-4 Clendenon had played football and basketball well enough to be offered contracts by both the Cleveland Browns and Harlem Globetrotters. His stepfather, Nish Williams, had been a Negro Leagues catcher with connections—no less than Satchell Paige helped teach the young Clendenon how to stay in on the curveball. Clendenon was coerced to attend a 1957 Pirates trout camp by the legendary Branch Rickey—Clendenon and future All-Star Julian Javier were the only men out of 500 to earn contracts from that camp.
On the road to becoming a big league slugger, the slights in the minors in the Jim Crow South had led to major wounds. Rickey had to smooth Clendenon’s feelings and pull the chain when needed. Clendenon wanted to quit and play in the NFL—the reserve clause was iron-clad enough to keep him from jumping sports without the Pirates’ approval, according to the excellent SABR biography by author Ed Hoyt. The next year Clendenon received a $5,600 bonus from Rickey after hitting .356 in the minors.
Clendenon was runner-up for National League Rookie of the Year in 1962. Popular power hitter Dick Stuart was shipped out to keep the path clear for Clendenon. He remained at first base while Willie Stargell patrolled the Pittsburgh outfield with Roberto Clemente. All were key pieces of the newly-christened Pittsburgh Lumber Company, but the 1968 season—with the added pressure of the deaths of mentor Martin Luther King and stepfather Nish Williams—saw Clendenon’s spot at Forbes Field grow tenuous, especially as young slugger Al Oliver seemed poised for the big leagues.
The 33-year-old Clendenon was left unprotected by the Pirates in the 1968 expansion draft. He was sixth player selected by the Montreal Expos.
Clendenon had options. Not only could he complete his studies, but he had a management position at Scripto Pen Company in Atlanta. He told the Expos he would stay at Scripto rather than report to Montreal. So the Expos flipped him to Houston—along with Jesus Alou—in exchange for Rusty Staub. That proved to be an even bigger problem for Clendenon. His former manager in Pittsburgh, Harry “The Hat” Walker, was now running the bench in Houston, and the two had clashed—as had most of the Pirates—with the old school, “my-way-or-the-highway” soldier turned 1947 batting champ. Life was too short for a second helping of The Hat.
Now Montreal didn’t seem so bad. But Montreal was already crazy about Rusty Staub and the Expos were not shipping “Le Grade Orange” back to Texas. So after a contentious meeting in which the owners and new commissioner Bowie Kuhn glowered at Clendenon and Scripto Pen president Arthur Harris, the Expos shipped $100,000 (American dollars, presumably) and a couple of pitchers to Houston—including future Big Red Machine benefactor Jack Billingham—in exchange for Clendenon. The Expos offered him a three-year contract. Donn was un-retired.
According to Ed Hoyt, Clendenon was in his hotel room one June morning in 1969 when the phone rang. It was Mets general manager Johnny Murphy, who thought he had Montreal GM John McHale on the line. Murphy bellowed, “I want Clendenon.” When Murphy realized that he had the man he wanted on the phone, he asked about his interest in being a Met. Tampering be damned! Clendenon said yes and Montreal, selling high on someone who had proved a lot of trouble and was hitting just .240 with the expansion Expos, swapped him for Steve Renko, Kevin Collins, Jay Carden, and Dave Colon. Renko had a pretty nice career as a starter at kooky Jarry Park for some dreadful Expos clubs until he was shipped to the Cubs in 1976, starting the itinerant portion his career. A 134-146 record, 3.99 ERA, and 23.6 WAR is nice production—and not near what the Mets gave up a couple of years later for Rusty Staub, but Renko never helped the Mets win a World Series. Nor did Staub, but Rusty sure came close.
The funny part of the story is that Clendenon, the veteran thumper the Mets lineup was dying for, didn’t play every day when he arrived in New York. Gil Hodges played a strict platoon at first, second and third base, plus right field, and the right-handed Clendenon was in the Hodges platoon. He started just 46 games after the June 15 trade. He had 12 homers and knocked in 37, but Ed Kranepool got the majority of the starts. After the Mets scrambled from 10 games out in mid-August and won the NL East title by eight games, Clendenon did not even bat in the NLCS sweep of Atlanta.
Fate gave the Mets a lefty-laden Orioles rotation and Clendenon took them apart. He had a small but deadly World Series sample of .357/.438/1.071 and hit crucial home runs in Games Two, Four, and Five—all Mets wins—to claim Series MVP. The one Series game against a righty, future Hall of Famer Jim Palmer, Kranepool hit a home run. Hodges could do no wrong. The Mets could do no wrong. It was a case of right guy, right team, right on! (Hey, it was the Sixties.)
The clubhouse lawyer played two more years with the Mets—fulfilling the contract he signed during his brief Expos stay—and becoming the Mets’ single-season RBI leader with 97 in ’70. Ex-Expo Staub broke that mark in 1975. Clendenon remains the only player the Mets have ever acquired at the trade deadline who helped the team to a world championship. Every years around the trade deadline, a Mets fan can’t help but wonder if another will come along someday.