Dennis Clotworthy (Al Kaline's Last Bat Boy)

This month on Lost Ballparks, our guest is Dennis Clotworthy, Al Kaline’s Last Bat Boy. Dennis grew up across the street from Tiger Stadium and eventually worked inside its walls. In our conversation, Dennis brings the old ballpark to life with incredible detail—describing everything from creaky trap doors to the magic of Gate 16, the heavy barn door that opened a hidden world below field level and the old, slick hardwood floors of the clubhouses, worn smooth and marked with metal spike impressions left by generations of legends.  His journey, which began in the unlikely setting of Malta, takes him to Detroit, where he chases a dream that leads to jobs as a junior usher, clubhouse attendant, visiting team's bat boy, and ultimately, bat boy for the Tigers. Along the way, he rubbed shoulders with legends like Brooks Robinson, Reggie Jackson, Nolan Ryan and, of course, Al Kaline. If you’ve ever dreamed of being a batboy at one of baseball’s most storied old ballparks, this episode is for you.

Transcript

Mike Koser 0:00

This month on Lost Ballparks, our guest is Dennis Clotworthy. He's the author of Al Kaline's Last Bat Boy, a vivid and heartfelt story of growing up right across the street from Tiger Stadium and eventually working inside its walls. In our conversation in this episode, Dennis brings the old ballpark to life with incredible detail, describing everything from creaky trapdoors to the magic of Gate 16, the heavy barn door that opened a hidden world below field level, and the old slick hardwood floors of the clubhouses, worn smooth and marked with metal spike impressions left by generations of legends. His journey, which began in the unlikely setting of Malta, takes him to Detroit, where he chases a dream that leads to jobs as a junior usher, a clubhouse attendant, visiting team's bat boy, and ultimately batboy for the Detroit Tigers. Along the way, he rubs shoulders with the likes of Brooks Robinson, Reggie Jackson, Nolan Ryan, and of course, Al Kaline. If you've ever dreamed of being a big league bat boy at one of baseball's most storied old ballparks, this episode is for you. Dennis, how are you?

Dennis Clothworthy 1:57

I'm good, thank you. How about yourself?

Mike Koser 1:59

I'm doing good. I'm doing good. Listen, uh, looking forward to talking with you today. I really enjoyed the book and I'm ready to jump in. So thank you for doing this.

Dennis Clothworthy 2:08

You're welcome.

Mike Koser 2:09

You and your family arrived in Detroit from the island of Malta in March of 1963. You were five or six?

Dennis Clothworthy 2:16

Not quite six. Three months from six years old.

Mike Koser 2:19

Okay, so uh I know those early years in America were not easy for your family. Your dad was doing whatever it took to support you all, even working as a dishwasher at a hotel in downtown Detroit. You guys moved around quite a bit, but uh by 1970, uh you had landed on Church Street in Detroit in this old Victorian house from the 1890s that your parents were renting for just 60 bucks a month. And for people who don't know Detroit, who don't know the layout of Detroit, 1632 Church Street was just a block south of Michigan Avenue, basically right across the street from Tiger Stadium. Uh Dennis, do you remember the day that you moved in and realized just how close you were to the ballpark?

Dennis Clothworthy 3:00

Yes, I do. And it's funny because when you mentioned moving previously, I was never more than six blocks away from Tiger Stadium. We lived in... when we got here, we uh uh first house we rented was in the Corktown area, which again, I was never more than six blocks away. So when we moved to Church Street, I couldn't get much closer than that.

Mike Koser 3:22

And your bedroom was upstairs on the back of the house facing Tiger Stadium. Could you hear the roar of the crowd from your room?

Dennis Clothworthy 3:31

Absolutely. I mean, it was uh that was just the norm, you know. Whenever there was a home game, uh that was just a constant ebb and flow of whenever the Tigers scored runs or got a great hit.

Ernie Harwell 3:42

Swing a line cut, made it to the field. Pass the ball up in the letters, and Mankowski just did a little tap and hit it over the infield for a single.

Dennis Clothworthy 3:51

And you know, the neighborhood, everybody sat on their porch, everybody had their transistor radios.

Ernie Harwell 3:57

Ready to go, and here for the play by play. Ernie Harwell. Thank you Paul.

Dennis Clothworthy 4:05

It's just part of watching the people park in the parking lots around the neighborhood. And even on the, they would get there early. Some of the ushers or the uh vendors would get there early to get whatever few parking spots on the street so they didn't have to pay in the parking lots. It was quite an event. Everybody just partook in listening to the Tigers.

Mike Koser 4:23

Dennis, I love this image. You and your buddies hanging out along Michigan Avenue, just outside of Tiger Stadium, 1968, 69. Like you said, transistor radios in hand, listening to the great, beloved Ernie Harwell, longtime voice of the Tigers, uh, call the game.

Ernie Harwell 4:39

Man on first, nobody out, Tigers at bat first inning, the game scored. Tiger Stadium in Detroit.

Mike Koser 4:45

You guys even had this whole system, right? I want you to talk about this where you would position yourselves on the street and specifically which street based on whether the batter was a righty or a lefty.

Dennis Clothworthy 4:56

Correct, yes. So uh home plate was located on the corner of Michigan Avenue and Cochrane. So if we sat on Michigan Avenue, we'd sit on a curb and we would listen to Ernie Harwell talk about, you know, and here's a fly ball over the roof over the first base side onto Michigan Avenue. We'd all jump up, we'd look for the ball coming over the roof, and we'd run chasing like crazy after it. However, that was only if it was a right-handed batter, because typically if he hit a foul ball and a right-handed batter would hit it over the first base side of the roof. If it was a left-handed batter,

Ernie Harwell 5:31

left-hand batter takes a high one, two and oh, the count...

Dennis Clothworthy 5:35

We'd run over to Cochrane and we'd we'd wait there in case the same thing happened.

Mike Koser 5:43

So great, and I gotta say, you and your buddies were pretty resourceful as 11, 12-year-olds. You didn't have money to buy tickets to Tigers games, so you had to get creative. Tell me about gate 16.

Becoming a Jr. Usher

Dennis Clothworthy 5:55

Yeah, when uh gate 16 was located where the visitor's clubhouse was, you know, you got familiar. We were stadium rats. That won't that's what everybody called us because we just hung around a stadium both inside and out. And we found out one time when we were inside a stadium that occasionally the usher or security guard would not latch the lock on the inside of this gate that uh normally would be lifted open for fans to exit the stadium. And if he didn't latch the lock, we learned that we could put our fingers underneath the gate. You know, there's only an opening of maybe a couple inches, and four or five of us would lift the gate up, roll it up, and scatter all in different directions so we couldn't be caught. And if so, not all of us were gonna be caught. Right. And so, you know, some one would go down the right field line, one would go behind on plate, the other would go down left field. Yeah, and it happened. We we were successful, I'd say uh 75% of the time.

Perfect view of Reggie Jackson's 1971 All-Star game HR

Mike Koser 6:54

We should take a second, by the way, and give a shout-out to your buddy Henry. He lived just a few doors down from you. And in the ultimate clutch friendship move, he helped land you a job as a junior usher at Tiger Stadium back in uh the spring of 71. And then just a few months later, in July of 71, the All-Star game returned to Tiger Stadium.

Curt Gowdy 7:15

Hi, everybody. I'm Curt Gowdy of NBC Sports, to call to play-by-play. And here in the home ballpark of the American League Tiger Stadium, it is hot and it is very windy. The wind is going to be a big factor in tonight's game. It's blowing from home plate to right field at 30 miles an hour.

Mike Koser 7:34

So here you are, a junior usher in section 14 on the third base side, watching one of the most memorable All-Star games in baseball history, and it's the bottom of the third inning.

Curt Gowdy 7:46

Remember, a 30 mile an hour wind blowing from home plate toward first base. Anything hit in the air toward right field will be given a tremendous boost.

Mike Koser 7:55

Reggie Jackson comes to the plate.

Curt Gowdy 7:57

17 homers. He's bounced back this year. 41 runs batted in. A fine all-around player.

Mike Koser 8:03

And you had the perfect view for what happened next.

Dennis Clothworthy 8:06

You give me goosebumps, and I mean that. Um, there were no seats available, obviously. And senior ushers, if you will, they pretty much took care of the box seats first 18 rows. And then the rows after that were alphabetized. So row A would be the first row of the reserve seats. So with no seats being available, we'd sit on the stairs. And I was sitting on the stairs, which I was low enough so that when Reggie hit that famous home run off the right center field tower, I was not underneath the overhang, so I could see it clearly.

Curt Gowdy 8:41

There's a long drive... That one is going way up, it is off the roof. That hit the Transformer up there.

Dennis Clothworthy 8:51

And like everyone in the whole park, everybody's just looking at each other going nuts because it was an unbelievable shot. And I swear to this day, that ball was still going up when it hit the light tower. And it was not on its descent.

Visiting team clubby at Tiger Stadium

Curt Gowdy 9:04

A tremendous smash. Only eight players have hit the ball over the roof here in Detroit. And Jackson nearly hit it then out of the ballpark.

Mike Koser 9:13

By 1972, you made your way to the visiting team clubhouse at Tiger Stadium working as a clubby. Tell me about a typical day. What did that look like for you back then? What kind of stuff were you doing behind the scenes as a clubby in the uh in the visiting team clubhouse at Tiger Stadium?

Dennis Clothworthy 9:28

So while we were in school, until you know school got out for the summer, we would hurry up and get home. I used to have to take a city bus to school, and we'd get there somewhere between two and three o'clock, depending on the day. It was a full day because the players would be coming in within the next two hours. So there was always something to do, ranging from sweeping the floor, mopping the floor, putting the laundry back into the lockers for each player, and all the laundry being underwear and the uh undergarments under the jerseys, you know, all marked with the black uh marking pen so that you can identify who's who, filling the towel rack, filling the pop machine, and a cigarette uh cabinet filled with cigarettes and ice cream and sunflower seeds, uh scrubbing the toilets, washing down the showers. It was a busy day.

Mike Koser 10:21

Yeah, and how much did you make per day back then?

Tiger Stadium clubhouse details

Dennis Clothworthy 10:23

A whopping $12. Now that was on when we were in school. When we were out of school, we'd have to do pretty much the same uh things, but we'd get there by 11 to noon. And you know, the games, depending on what time the games ended, could we never got home before midnight, and typically it was around one o'clock. So that's about a buck an hour, right? Yeah, that's about it.

Mike Koser 10:46

Okay, so tell me about the visiting teams clubhouse back then, what it looked like, what it felt like. I mean, this is the same clubhouse where uh Babe Ruth was, Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams, uh Brooks Robinson, Mickey Mantle, uh some of the all-time greats.

Dennis Clothworthy 11:02

You know, back then I I don't remember barn doors being popular like they are today. You know, a lot of people have them in their houses and basements and stuff. Well, there's this heavy barn door type thing where it slid from left to right, and there was always a security guard in there. And when you walked in, there was another wall, so you couldn't see straight into the locker room. You kind of had to turn left and then scoot around the uh tiled wall. And immediately, as soon as you got around that tiled wall, the first locker was there on the left. It was a rectangular-shaped clubhouse, and therefore a set of lockers. I'm gonna guess probably around 15 to 18 lockers on one side, another maybe 12 to 15 on the other side. And the first set of lockers, when you walk in, uh, those are primarily for non-pitchers, and the other side of the locker room, they put all the pitchers on that side of the locker room, and then in the back corner, the manager and some and the coaches. The floor, I mean, think about it. You know, I don't know when that floor went in, but it was ancient. It was extremely hard wood. And you had to be careful with those metal spikes because you could slip on that floor real easy. There was no running out of there in full speed because you could fall in, God knows what happened.

Mike Koser 12:20

Yeah.

Holding Reggie Jackson's hand

Dennis Clothworthy 12:20

Um, the showers were at the far end, the restrooms at the far end, and about halfway through the clubhouse on the right side uh was the uh trainers' trainer's room, and that was probably the size of maybe a 10 by 12 bedroom. And there was a training table and all his supplies that went along with uh the needs of the day. It was nothing special. The the lockers were maybe 30 to 36 inches wide and pretty much like uh a little heavier material than chicken wire, but nonetheless, it had the tiled walls in the back, and nothing fancy by any stretch of the imagination.

Mike Koser 12:59

Yeah. So the Tigers wrapped up the 1972 season with 86 wins uh and faced the A's in the ALCS. Game five was at Tiger Stadium.

Ernie Harwell 13:09

Cloudy skies, the lights are on, it's cool, and windy at Tiger Stadium.

Mike Koser 13:13

And in the second inning, Reggie Jackson slid hard into home, and it was clear right away that something was wrong.

Ernie Harwell 13:19

Jackson is now lying on his back in the right-hand batters boxs.

Mike Koser 13:24

He was hurt, couldn't get off the field on his own, and I know that you, Dennis, remember what happened next.

Dennis Clothworthy 13:30

Yes, um, the trainer and manager Dick Williams ran out to see him because he was having trouble getting up. And after, you know, a few minutes here and there, they they picked him up. Reggie had put his arms on the shoulders of Williams and the trainer and walked him over to the visitor's dugout.

Ernie Harwell 13:46

Gingerly, uh, Jackson is walking off the field. And unless he shows a good deal of improvement, I don't think he'll be back in the lineup.

Dennis Clothworthy 13:55

Now I was in the tunnel that uh right at the end of the dugout before heading up into the clubhouse, and I was in my street clothes, and I couldn't go into dugout, you're not allowed in a dugout without a uniform. And they brought him to the edge of the dugout, and there were three steep stairs to come down, and a trainer saw me there and he called out to me and said, Hey Dennis, come and give me a hand. And I did, and Dick Williams went back to managing the game. Here I am, I'm 15 years old. I've got Reggie Jackson's arm over my shoulder, and the trainer on the other side of him, and we're slowly walking him about, oh, I'm guessing 40 feet or so to the stairs that lead up to the clubhouse. It ended up he had a pulled hamstring, and we took him into the trainer's room. For whatever reason, the trainer asked me, he says, Um, hey Dennis, stick around. He says, I might need you to grab me something. So we kind of helped Reggie get on it, lay back on his back on the training table. And the trainer says to Reggie, he says, Reggie, I'm gonna have to diagnose, you know, how bad your injury is, so I'm gonna be poking around in the back of your leg. And he says, Dennis, give Reggie a towel. So I grab a towel from the towel rack right there, and uh, Reggie puts it in his mouth, and the trainer starts working on his leg, and obviously it wasn't just a pulled muscle, it was a torn hamstring.

Mike Koser 15:12

He was in bad shape, yeah.

Dennis Clothworthy 15:13

He was in bad shape, didn't play in the World Series because of that. And uh, as the trainer touched the sore spot, Jackson bites down on the towel, and he happened to be holding my left hand because I was on by his side, so I don't know if he needed something else to grab onto besides the towel. He squeezed my hand, and I swear I thought he was gonna pull my arm off. So uh he was a strong guy and one of the few guys that I would consider really built and muscular for the day.

Celebrating with the 1972 A's

Mike Koser 15:41

Yeah. Now, uh, Dennis, here's the tough part about being a visiting teams clubby. After the A's won that series, Oakland is the American League Championship team. It was your job to hand out the champagne as the players came up the tunnel steps from the dugout.

Announcer 15:57

are they thrilled as they go to the dressing room.

Mike Koser 15:59

And as a hometown kid who loves his tigers, it was a double-edged sword.

Dennis Clothworthy 16:04

You know, Tigers were my team and certainly wanted them to win, but you've kind of take got to take that neutral attitude when you work in the visitors' clubhouse. Yeah. And myself and the other two clubbies were standing as they come up the stairs, and there were two or three, I can't remember, two or three um 55-gallon drums filled with ice and champagne. And here we are passing them out, and the celebration begins, and they're just going nuts as typical locker rooms are when they win, you know, something like going to the World Series.

Mike Koser 16:33

Yeah, and adding insult to injury though, after the A's left that night, you guys were stuck cleaning everything up without, by the way, without the benefit of plastic sheeting back then, right?

Hidden ball, Norm Cash's table leg and Nolan Ryan's 1973 no-hitter

Dennis Clothworthy 16:43

That's correct. Back then, the players didn't wear goggles to protect them from the champagne. Um, there was no sheeting on the lockers. Fortunately, the back of the lockers, as I mentioned earlier, were made of little four by four tiles. And Jack Hand, the clubhouse manager, my boss, said, We're not cleaning this place up today. He said, We'll just come back tomorrow. You know, season's over at that point with nobody coming in. And that's what we did. The next day we came in and cleaned it all up. But I might add, uh Angel Man gual, the backup second baseman, saw myself and the two other kids, clubbies, standing there, and he comes over and he hands it, he says, Come on and celebrate with us. So he gives us each a bottle of champagne. I'm 15 years old. I never opened up a bottle of champagne in my life. And uh I open it up, it pops, I take a little swig, and here I am. I'm squirting Sal Bando, Joe Rudi, Reggie Jackson, and he's standing there in a towel wrapped around his waist and nothing else, and on crutches, Vida Blue, and I mean, it's just Burt Campaneris and Jim Catfish Hunter, and I'm hosing him down with as much as I could with a bottle of champagne.

Mike Koser 17:51

It's so great. By 1973, you were chosen as the visiting team bad boy at Tiger Stadium. Now, think about the players in that era that you were in contact with regularly: Brooks Robinson, Jim Palmer, Fisk, Yaz, Dick Allen, Rod Carew, Harmon Killebrew, and Nolan Ryan.

Ernie Harwell 18:08

One of the great games Nolan Ryan pitched was right here. You remember when uh he was pitching his second no-hitter of the season and struck out a total of 17 Tigers. That was in 73.

Mike Koser 18:20

So in 1973, Nolan Ryan threw the second no-hitter of his career, this one at Tiger Stadium, pitching for the California Angels. Couple of details here are important. The visiting dugout at Tiger Stadium was on the first base side. Behind home plate sat the ball man, and those pieces came together just right that night, July 15th, 1973, and set you up to walk away with an incredible piece of memorabilia. Tell me what happened that night.

Dennis Clothworthy 18:48

I knew it around the fifth inning. Everybody knew there was a chance that Ryan could pitch an O here. He was just the Tigers were missing the ball by six inches to a foot.

Ernie Harwell 18:58

Ryan sets and delivers. he swings and misses.

Dennis Clothworthy 19:02

It was crazy. He was just mowing them down. So I said, you know, this is amazing. I could be part of history. I came up with the idea that if the Tigers were up and Ryan was pitching and the ball, there was a foul ball hit down the right field line, there was an usher there sitting on a stool. I said, if the ball didn't go into the stands, he typically would pick it up and throw it back to me. I would jump out of the dugout in front of the dugout, he'd throw it to me on a roll, and I would turn around and toss it back to uh the ballman behind home plate, Bill Fendero. And uh so on this occasion, about the seventh inning, sure enough, foul ball down the right field line. Uh Usher tosses it to me. But rather than just turning around and throwing it to Bill, the ballman, I looked at the ball and looked at Bill and I shook my head left and right in a no fashion.

Mike Koser 19:53

Like you're telling him the ball's no good, and you're taking it out of play.

Dennis Clothworthy 19:56

That's correct. I took the ball and put it in my first baseman in the dugout, and that happened again the following inning. So now I've got two baseballs that were pitched by Nolan Ryan during his second career no-hitter. And after the game, I took him into the clubhouse and I had him completely signed by the uh Angels team, and uh including Nolan Ryan, of course.

Mike Koser 20:22

Wasn't that game where the one where Norm Cash walked up to the plate to face Nolan Ryan with a table leg instead of a bat? Was that the one?

Dennis Clothworthy 20:30

Yes, it is, exactly right.

Announcer 20:32

Now Ryan is one out away from the no-hitter, but both Stanley and Brown hit the ball hard here in the ninth, and now it's Norman Cash.

Dennis Clothworthy 20:39

Norm Cash walks up to the plate, and Ron Luciano is the home plate umpire, and he was quite a character back in the day. And Cash just walks up casually, you know, swinging the bat by his side.

Announcer 20:50

Ryan waits for Cash. Cash wants perhaps a lighter bat.

Dennis Clothworthy 20:54

And Luciano bends over and he looks at Cash and goes, Norman, I can't let you bet with that thing. He says, Why not? I'm not gonna hit the guy anyway. Okay, Cash walked up there with an old board bat.

Announcer 21:08

That wasn't a bat at all. It looked like an old fungo. Well, leave it to Norman for a little levity, and Ron Luciana is breaking up behind the plate.

Dennis Clothworthy 21:17

So he tosses uh table leg, whatever it was, back to the dugout. The other bat boy gets him the um his bat, and sure enough, he pops up, which is better than what he did in his first three times at bat, because he struck out all three times, uh and then he popped up to end the game.

Mike Koser 21:33

Dennis, when the 73 season wrapped up, you got moved over to the Tigers Clubhouse. And I mean, sure, that job was great, but for a Detroit kid, the real dream I think was being the team's bat boy. And just like the title of your book says, when the 74 season kicked off, you became Al K aline's last bat boy. Tell me about the moment that you put on the Tigers uniform for the first time.

Tigers clubhouse details

Dennis Clothworthy 21:57

I'm waiting anxiously in the in the clubhouse as the players are coming in. I'm just in heaven, right? I mean, imagine being 16 years old and here's your team. And uh I'm sitting at my locker and I'm just looking at my uniform and I'll tell you how fortunate I was. On one side of me was Mickey Lolich. And John Hiller was in the locker on the other side of me. But it was amazing putting on the white home uniform of the English D. And I was in awe, simply put, I was in awe, and I still am to this day.

Mike Koser 22:32

Let's talk about the the Tigers Clubhouse for a minute. You mentioned where your locker was. Can you just take us inside there for a second and and uh give us the scene, the the heavy clubhouse door? I mean, Jack Hand's storage room with the wire cage door, the layout, yeah, that kind of thing.

Dennis Clothworthy 22:48

Sure. Like the visitors' clubhouse, it had a uh heavy barn door that slid off to the side, and then you had a little bit of a hallway here, uh, and you could look straight into the clubhouse, unlike the visitors, and the Tigers Clubhouse was more square than rectangle. And as you walked in, um, on the left, there was a wall, and behind that wall was the manager's office, and that year that happened to be Ralph House. Now, when I say manager's office, this thing might have been 10 by 10. And after games, you'd have 12, 15 uh reporters in there and they're crammed in elbow to elbow. It was hilarious. But once you got past that little hallway, there was a short row of lockers to the right, and behind my lockers, there was the room that you spoke of where Jack Hand, the manager, kept all his incidentals. He kept everything in there sunflower seeds, cigarettes, everything you could think of. And then as you walk in the locker room to the left, next to the uh Ralph Hawk's office, the coaches had their lockers there, and then the rest of the infielders, outfielders were mixed in. And if you walk straight into the tire clubhouse, the far left corner where the back wall meets the left wall was a double locker. And this locker was typically reserved for the uh well, well, in this case, it happened to be Al K alne, the prominent player on the team, or maybe more seniority. That was his locker.

Replacing Norm Cash during infield practice

Mike Koser 24:09

So that first night, you head down those 12 steps or so from the clubhouse into the tunnel and out through the dugout. And you mentioned in your book that one of the absolute best parts of being the Tigers bat boy was shagging fly balls during batting practice at Tiger Stadium. I mean, I can't even imagine what that was like.

Dennis Clothworthy 24:26

That was just awesome. I used to take infield practice once in a while. Also, Norm Cash. There were days he didn't, let's say he didn't feel like practicing, and so he'd ask me to go sub during infield practice. So here I am, and I was a pretty good ball player, and I'd do infield practice with the players just before the game. But in the outfield, I'd go in center field most of the time, and Mickey Stanley was always out there, and you know, three or four other players, a couple of pitchers out there, and we used to take turns, and Mickey would tell me once in a while, okay, you got the next one that comes out to center field. So on this one occasion, I'm sure most people remember uh Mickey Stanley. He had a knack of turning the opposite direction when the ball was coming at him and just chase it down. Well, you know, I'm I'm pretending I'm Mickey Stanley on this occasion and the ball's over my head. I reach up with my left hand, my glove hand. Well, I didn't realize the flagpole was about five feet away from me.

Mike Koser 25:23

And for those who don't remember, the flagpole was in play at Tiger Stadium. It's on the field.

Dennis Clothworthy 25:29

Exactly. And I run right into it nose first. I hung on to the ball, I fall to the ground. The players, you know, you think to come to see if I'm okay. Oh no, they're laughing at me like crazy. The ushers in the stands and left field are clapping for me because I hung up and onto the ball, and the players are just laughing. They're just giving me a hard time.

Mike Koser 25:52

That flagpole still standing today. The Detroit Police Athletic League built a field right there on the corner. Yeah, that's the one piece of Tiger Stadium that's still left.

Dennis Clothworthy 26:01

And my nose imprint is still there also.

Mike Koser 26:03

Dennis, you had an on-deck circle routine. Can you walk me through that?

Dennis Clothworthy 26:07

Yeah, there was always a kneeling pad back then, uh about a one-inch by maybe 15-inch square kneeling pad. The players wanted to kneel down. There was also a donut, obviously, that you slip over the bat to add weight to the bat. And there was also a uh a weighted bat, which was just so you didn't have to use the donut, it was just a heavy bat. Uh, a towel, a pine tar rag, and a rosin bag. And this was something that I put out at the beginning of every inning, and I would uh remove it, obviously, when the uh visiting team came up.

Mike Koser 26:42

For those who spent a lot of time at Tiger Stadium, you knew that the ball club, its players, and its staff members were not the only residents. There were plenty of rats, and that largely had to do with the trapdoor and gate 14.

Dennis Clothworthy 26:55

That's exactly right. Um the trapdoor, there was a huge room, and the trapdoor you referred to was at the top of this room, which was basically the upper deck. So whenever the ground crew or the stadium workers swept the aisles with, you know, all the popcorn and hot dog remains and cups and everything else, everything was taken to this one area near gate 14. They'd opened a trapdoor and all this garbage was falling to this room. I'm gonna say maybe it was a big room, maybe like 30 by 30 square. And then, you know, the garbage trucks would come in with a front loader and shovel up uh all the garbage and put it in the trucks and take it away. Well, I was taking the garbage from the clubhouse one time to this area I'm speaking of, and it's about halfway full with garbage. And as I do, I turn a garbage can over and out comes a rat running from underneath a big pile of garbage right between my legs. And those rats also used to congregate on the field on the tarp. For whatever reason, if there was going to be a you know a chance of rain, the ground crew would cover the infield and the rats would go out there and they'd just be 100, 150 of them running around. And we just ride out there in a golf cart. One of us would have a broom, one of us would have a BB gun, and we we'd go running drive around the infield.

Mike Koser 28:16

It's crazy too. You know, the reason why I was like that, part of the reason was that uh I think the trash guy only came like once a week, right? So this stuff would just sit there.

Dennis Clothworthy 28:24

That's exactly right, and would sit there. And can you imagine the feel that you know, pieces of hot dogs and buns and oh yeah, who knows?

Mike Koser 28:32

I'm sure it I'm sure it smelled terrible too.

Dennis Clothworthy 28:35

It did, it absolutely did. And the other thing, uh, we used to ride the golf cart. There was a golf cart that one of the ground crew guys, we'd ask him to leave the key in it. We'd go riding around in the middle of the night while we're waiting for the when I was in the visitors' locker room, we're waiting for the team trucks to come in from the airport, and we'd take the golf cart and we go up and down those ramps. How we didn't run into a pole, I have no idea. But you know, at 15, 16, you don't think of those things.

Mike Koser 29:01

No, you think you think you're invincible, yeah.

Dennis Clothworthy 29:03

Absolutely.

Mike Koser 29:05

Today, every time a ball hits the ground, it's taken out of a game and and many times given to a fan. That seems almost inconceivable based on what you experienced as a bat boy in 1974, right?

Dennis Clothworthy 29:17

Yes, yes. You know, there was a bag that was for the game used balls that the umpires and the ballmen uh handled, and then there was a similar bag in our in the Tigers Clubhouse uh that would they use for batting practice. And there was a stadium manager, his name was Ralph Snyder, and he sat about seven rows up from the field just to the left of home plate, third base side. And one of my one of my job descriptions was to make sure if a foul ball went along the wall, I did everything possible not to let the fans bend over the wall and pick up the ball and take it home with them. So, on occasion where a fan would get to it before me, you know, I'd get booed by the fans if I picked it up before the fans. But I would get complimented by Ralph Snyder for not letting the ball get into the stands and the fan take it home with him. And when I see it today, I mean it's just unbelievable. They weren't, they would hide. The players would hide if they were trying to give a ball to a fan out in the during batting practice or something like that. And today they're just throwing them in left and right. You can't even let it hit the ground at all and they toss it out of the game.

Kaline's 3,000th hit

Mike Koser 30:23

September 24th, 1974, the Tigers were on the road in Baltimore.

Ernie Harwell 30:28

The Tigers and the Birds here in Baltimore tonight on a cool, clear evening. That's it for now Ernie Harwell saying. See you at game time.

Mike Koser 30:36

Al K alne in his final year was going for hit number 3,000. And in the fourth inning, he got it.

Dennis Clothworthy 31:27

The ground crew put together this wheelbarrow. They took a plank of wood on each side, fastened it to each side of the wheelbarrow, screwed it in, nuts and bolted it in, whatever. It was painted in blue, dark blue, with the numbers 3,000 in white on each side. My job was to take the wheelbarrow from the entrance where the ground crew entered the field, walk in front of the tiger dugout around to the home plate area, and position the wheelbarrow between home plate and the pitcher's mount. In that wheelbarrow were three canvas bags, typical bags that they used to use at banks for coins and things like that. And my job was to, once I got up there, while the announcer was announcing what was taking place, the announcer announced that each bag contained $1,000 silver dollars commemorating the 3,000 hits that Kaline had just achieved. I was to pour the uh bags open, open up all three bags, and pour them into the wheelbarrow while everybody, of course, was cheering for Al Kaline.

Mike Koser 32:28

What a what a great moment. Kaline's 3,000th hit came in in game 154 that year. A few days later, he would play the final game of his career. That day provided so many moments that Dennis, I know you will never forget. Can you talk to me about that that special day?

"Bird Mania" - a night on the town with Mark Fydrich

Dennis Clothworthy 32:45

Certainly. So it was the final homestand. It was October 2nd, 1974, and everybody knew that this was gonna be it. Um, Kaline was never gonna put on that home uniform again, and illustrious career was gonna be over. Only, if I remember correctly, 4,061 people showed up that day. It was misty, a slight drizzle, I get it, a little chilly. But how could that possibly happen? Yeah. I mean, I know the team was bad, but that's all that were there. The game ends unceremoniously, and myself and Bill Fondero, who's in the in the dugout with me, bringing the ball bag over, and we're very respectfully quiet, and Kaline's the only other person in the dugout. And he's sitting there, he's got his tiger jacket on, and he's taking it all in. He's looking out into the stand, and we just kept it at a bare minimum conversation. We just wanted him to have his time. And after a few minutes, he got up, he stood on the first or second step of the dugout, and he kind of did a 360, and he just took a look around the entire stadium, and that was it. I don't know where I got the courage to say this, but I called over to him, I said, Mr. Kaline, he turns around, turns his head, looking at yeah. I says, May I have one of your bats as a keepsake? He smiled at me and he says, Sure. And that's all he said. And he walked up into the tunnel and I proceeded to the bat rack and he had two bats in the rack that day. Some players have three bats, four bats. They just, you know, never know which one they're gonna use. He only had two in the bat rack that day. And of course, being the bat boy, I knew exactly which bat he had used when he flew out the left field, and therefore, I was the owner of uh Al Ka line's last official bat he used uh in his career.

Mike Koser 34:40

That's incredible, and what a what a great piece of uh of memorabilia. So, Dennis, in 1976, Bird Manie swept through the city of Detroit. And after a magical Monday night in June, it captured the entire country when Mark the Bird Fydrich pitched against the Yankees on national television on ABC's Monday Night Baseball.

Announcer 35:04

He's won seven in a row.

Bob Uecker 35:22

You know, I've never I've never seen a ball game like this, Mark. I gotta ask you one thing. Have you ever have you ever heard a more emotional response from a crowd than we had here tonight?

Mark Fydrich 35:31

Well, I never played under this many people before in my life.

Mike Koser 35:34

What the country saw that night, we had never seen before. A pitcher talking to a baseball, having a full-on conversation with the baseball, and then manicuring the dirt like it was his own backyard garden that he was desperately trying to take care of.

Warner Wolf 35:51

He is a character. Some people refer to him as an eccentric. He will pat the mound, he'll talk to the ball, he'll congratulate his players after an excellent play.

Mike Koser 36:01

And with within a year, Fydrich was as big as any rock star uh on the cover of Rolling Stone, sold-out stadiums. I mean, on nights that he wasn't pitching at Tiger Stadium, they'd sell 10,000 tickets. On nights that he did pitch, there'd be 50,000 people in the stands. He was a true phenomenon.

Dennis Clothworthy 36:23

He was something else, and there's never been anybody like him. And you can ask anybody in baseball, nobody approached the game like he did. But after all is said and done, that was him. This was not an act. It was the way he psyched himself up every time he pitched the game.

Mark Fydrich 36:41

Well, when I passed him on, I'm just keeping it so I don't, you know, getting that guy's run. I want to dig my own hole and my own landing point and all that, because I have my own thing. And then I'm just getting myself psyched, telling it, don't let up now. Just go as hard as you can, as hard as you can. And if they burn you, they burn you. That's you know, life.

Dennis Clothworthy 36:56

He would literally, yeah, you've seen videos of him. If you haven't, YouTube Mark Fydrich, it's hilarious. He's talking to the ball between each pitch. And then what he's saying to himself is settle down, keep it low, keep it inside, whatever he was attempting to do with each pitch. Well, the rest is history. He went on to have a uh rookie of the year, had a tremendous, I forget how many uh complete games he had. I think it was 24, if I remember correctly, and which is unheard of by teams nowadays, much less a uh single pitcher. After the first few starts out in the bleachers, which were tickets, you know, only sold on the day of the game, there was no advanced uh ticket sales for the bleachers. He got so bad that they'd have to delay the game a little bit because people were lined up down the street. And so what they started doing was selling tickets early that morning because they didn't want the streets crowded and people getting in late. Nobody wanted to miss this guy pitch.

Mike Koser 37:53

Uh, before the world knew him as the bird, before the bird was as big as he became, there was a night in May of 1976 that you shared with him. You got a chance to hang out with him.

Dennis Clothworthy 38:05

Yes, I did. Um, the week prior to May 8th, Tom Veryzer, a shortstop for the Tigers, uh, knowing that I worked in uh I had connections in the ticket office, if you will, asked me if I knew anybody at the Olympia Stadium where the Red Wings played, uh, in the ticket office that could get him tickets for Paul McCartney and Wings Over America tour concert. And I said, Tom, I said, I do know people, I said, but that thing sold out. I said, but I can get us in, we just won't have any seats. Because, what do you mean? I said, Well, by this time, over the years, myself and a friend of uh mine, Victor, we actually found out that the usher is at the door. All you had to do was take up a fake ticket from a previous game that's typically torn in half, hand it to the usher. The usher would pretend like he's tearing it, give it back to you, and you would walk into the stadium. And we'd go in and we'd watch the Red Wing games back when they were the dead wings and they had four or five thousand people in the stands and they were terrible. And we used the same method. I I told Veriser, I can use the same method to get us into the concert. He says, That's fine with me. So Tom Veryzer and I, uh, after Saturday afternoon game, the concert was at night, he said, let's go to Lindell AC, a famous watering hole where a lot of the visiting team players hung out and sometimes the tiger players as well. He said, Let's go grab a burger and a beer. So we did. And about 20 minutes later, Mark Fydrich walks in the door and he comes hobbling in and he comes in over the table, hey, hey, TV, and Tom Veryzer and hey Dennis, he knew me because I worked in the ticket office. He's what are you guys doing? And Veryzer was a very laid-back guy, and he just calmly told him what I just explained. And he says, Oh man, can you get me in? Can you get me in too? He's screaming all excited. And Veryzer goes, I don't know. Let me Dennis, can you get him in? I said, Yeah, we should be able to do that. So we have our burger and bearers, we get in the car. I'm driving. I had my 76 Ford Elite, and Tom Veryzer's in the front seat, passenger side, two-door car, and Fydrich's just sitting right behind him. And Veryzer's got the window all down. And as we're approaching Olympia Stadium on Grand River, Fydrich's just trying to stick his neck out the window, hooting and hollering at every girl that walked by. Hey, you want to go to a concert with us? And Veryzer's like, shut up, we can't get everybody in. The bird is just going nuts. So we went to the show and um we ended up sitting on the stairs only because I mentioned to the usher there, because he tried to kick us out. And I said, Hey, these guys play for the Tigers. This is Tom Veyzer and Mark Fydrich. And nobody knew who Fydrich was back then. Prior to that date of the 8th, he had pitched one inning on April 20th in relief. If he would have been yelling and hooting and hollering after his notoriary, I can't imagine that the car might have been flooded with girls just trying to jump in.

Mike Koser 41:07

Yeah. What just an incredible story and a night I'm sure you will never ever forget.

Dennis Clothworthy 41:12

Not at all. Never.

Mike Koser 41:14

Hey Dennis, the book is excellent, and uh I encourage people to check it out. Al Kaline's uh Last Bat Boy, one of my favorite reads from this past year. Love spending some time with you today.

Dennis Clothworthy 41:25

Well, thank you very much. I enjoyed. I love talking that era of baseball. Thank you, Mike. I appreciate your time.

Mike Koser 41:31

Yeah, what a great storyteller. And the book is is really one of my favorites. I loved it.

Dennis Clothworthy 41:35

Thanks again.

Mike Koser 41:36

All right, take care, man. The book is called Al Kaline's Last Bat Boy, and it's available now on Amazon and definitely worth checking out. A couple of quick notes before we wrap up. First, every kid who loves baseball dreams of one day being on a Topps baseball card. And that dream came true for Dennis. The 1975 Topps Tigers team photo card, technically of the 1974 team, features Dennis in the second row from the bottom, third from the right. In the book, he writes that being on this team card has to be one of the best things to happen to be in baseball. And here's something else. Over the years, Dennis became close friends with legendary broadcaster Hall of Famer, the late, beloved Ernie Harwell. Every year, without fail, Ernie sent Dennis a birthday card and a Christmas card. A small gesture that really speaks volumes about both men.