Kiners Korner Chronicles, No. 10: The MVP Who Almost Wasn't a Met

Welcome to the Kiners Korner Chronicles.

This site is dedicated to Ralph Kiner and the legacy of the greatest sports postgame show ever, Kiner's Korner.

While researching our book, Down on the Korner, my co-author Howie Karpin and I tracked down as many surviving episodes of Kiner's Korner as we could find. Now, you can watch those treasured broadcasts right here on this site and relive the conversations, the characters, and the unforgettable moments that made Ralph's show so special.

But our search also taught us something heartbreaking: for every conversation we recovered, dozens more were lost — taped over, thrown out, or gone forever.

So we're doing the next best thing. Through the power of AI and deep research into the old games, we hope to recreate a little bit of that magic. The game recaps are real, built from the box score. The interviews that follow are our best imagining of the conversations that were lost — what Ralph would have asked, and what his guest might have answered.

Recreation of the lost Kiner's Korner interview — Donn Clendenon with Ralph Kiner on the Korner set. Not an authentic broadcast still.

The Game

FLUSHING, N.Y. — The man who hit the biggest home run of the Miracle Mets' season had to retire, unretire, and change teams twice just to get here. Donn Clendenon spent eight seasons with Pittsburgh before the Pirates left him unprotected and the expansion Montreal Expos claimed him. In January, the Expos traded him to Houston for Rusty Staub — but Houston's manager was Harry Walker, Clendenon's old Pittsburgh skipper, and Clendenon refused to report. He retired, with an executive's job at the Scripto pen company waiting for him. Commissioner Bowie Kuhn ruled that Clendenon still belonged to Montreal; on April 3, Clendenon unretired and signed with the Expos for a raise, and Staub stayed in Montreal, the Expos sending Houston two pitchers and cash instead. On June 15, the Mets acquired Clendenon from Montreal for Kevin Collins, pitcher Steve Renko, and two minor leaguers. The Mets were 30-26 that day, nine games behind the Chicago Cubs. They went 70-36 the rest of the way.

Game 5, on a pleasant Thursday afternoon before 57,397 at Shea, was a rematch of Game 2: Jerry Koosman, who had beaten Baltimore 2-1 on 8⅔ innings of two-hit ball in Baltimore, against Dave McNally. For two innings it was scoreless. In the third, Mark Belanger singled to right — and McNally, the pitcher, homered to left. Don Buford grounded out and Paul Blair struck out, but Frank Robinson homered to left-center, and the Orioles led, 3-0. McNally, meanwhile, was mowing the Mets down: three hits in five innings, the best of them Koosman's own double in the third. Halfway through the game that would end the season, the Mets had nothing, and the Series looked bound for Baltimore.

The game turned on a scuff mark. There had already been one disputed call: in the top of the sixth, umpire Lou DiMuro ruled that Koosman's pitch had not hit Frank Robinson, who then struck out looking. In the bottom half, McNally's first pitch to Cleon Jones brushed him back. DiMuro called it a ball. Jones insisted the pitch had hit his foot — and manager Gil Hodges emerged from the dugout carrying the ball, which he showed to DiMuro: there, plain as day, was a smudge of shoe polish where the pitch had grazed Jones's shoe. DiMuro changed his call and sent Jones to first. ("It's always good planning to have a baseball in the dugout with shoe polish on it, just in case," Frank Robinson grumbled — forty-four years later.) Clendenon, the next hitter, drove McNally's pitch out to left for a two-run homer — his third home run of the Series — and Shea shook. It was 3-2, and after the third inning Koosman allowed exactly one more hit.

In the seventh, Al Weis led off and homered to deep left off McNally — the seventh home run of Weis's career, the only one he ever hit at Shea, from the best hitter the Mets had in the Series (.455). Tie game, 3-3. Curt Motton pinch-hit for McNally in the eighth and grounded out, and Eddie Watt took the mound. Jones doubled to center. Clendenon grounded out to third. Ron Swoboda doubled to left, Jones scored, and the Mets led, 4-3. Ed Charles flied out. Then Jerry Grote bounced a grounder down the first-base line — Boog Powell bobbled it, threw late to Watt covering first, and Watt let the ball get away. Two errors on one play. Swoboda scored, unearned, and it was 5-3.

Koosman walked Frank Robinson to open the ninth, and Shea held its breath. Powell forced Robinson at second, Weis to Harrelson. Chico Salmon ran for Powell. Brooks Robinson flied out to Swoboda in right. And then Davey Johnson lifted one to left field, where Cleon Jones — the man whose polished shoe had started everything — waited under it. "Come on down, baby, come on down," Jones remembered thinking. "It's all over." It was. The fans poured over the walls, tore up the turf, and carried off the bases. Koosman had gone the distance: nine innings, five hits, one walk, five strikeouts. Clendenon was named the Most Valuable Player of the World Series — three home runs, a .357 average, and a championship for a seven-year-old franchise that had never finished above ninth place. Final score: Mets 5, Orioles 3.

Ralph's Guest

The Mets' cleanup hitter and first baseman — three home runs in the Series, a .357 average, and the World Series MVP award, four months after arriving in the June trade that finished the Miracle. Today: 1-for-3, a walk, and the two-run homer that turned Game 5 around.

The Interview (imagined)

What follows is a dramatic recreation. The game was real. The conversation is our imagining of the Kiner's Korner segment that likely aired that afternoon — the tapes of those early shows were erased long ago.

Ralph: Donn, in April you were retired. You had quit baseball rather than report to Houston, and tonight you are the Most Valuable Player of the World Series. I have been around this game a long time, and I do not know another story like it. Where do we even start?

Donn: Start with January, Ralph. Montreal had traded me to Houston for Rusty Staub, and Houston's manager was Harry Walker. Harry had managed me in Pittsburgh, and I knew I could not play for that man again, so I retired. That was not a bluff. I had a job waiting for me with the Scripto pen company, and I was ready to go to work. What I did not count on was how much I would miss the game — or that a commissioner would get himself involved in my retirement.

Ralph: And instead, on June fifteenth, you are traded here — for Kevin Collins, Steve Renko, and a couple of young pitchers — to a club nine games behind the Cubs. And Gil Hodges does not even play you every day. He platoons you with Ed Kranepool at first base.

Donn: And Gil was right, Ralph. Ed hit the right-handers, I hit the left-handers, and nobody in that clubhouse cared whose name was in the lineup as long as we won. Every man on that club had a job. Mine was to be ready when a left-hander was on the mound — and in this Series, Baltimore gave me two of the best left-handers in baseball, Cuellar and McNally. All four games I started were against left-handed pitching. That is not luck. That is a manager knowing his men.

Ralph: Then let us go to the sixth inning today, because you had the best seat in the house — the on-deck circle. McNally's first pitch to Cleon Jones runs in on him. Lou DiMuro calls it a ball. Cleon says it hit him. And out of the dugout comes Gil Hodges, carrying the baseball.

Donn: I was maybe thirty feet away, Ralph, and I saw that pitch catch Cleon. Then Gil comes out with the ball and shows Lou the mark on it — Cleon's shoe polish, right there on the ball. Lou looked at it and sent Cleon to first. Now, Baltimore will tell you that ball never touched him, and Frank Robinson will probably go to his grave saying we kept a polished baseball in the dugout. But I was standing right there. The mark was on the ball because the ball was on Cleon's shoe.

Ralph: And then McNally has to pitch to you, with the tying run on first and nobody out — and you hit it out to left. Your third home run of the Series. You took this same man deep in Game Two, in Baltimore, too.

Donn: Dave McNally pitched two fine ballgames against us in this Series and lost them both, and that is a shame for him, because he was every bit as good as advertised. In Game Two he made one mistake to me, and today he made one more. Against a pitcher like that, you may get one pitch in a game that you can drive. If you miss it, you walk back to the dugout. I did not miss.

Ralph: Seventh inning. Al Weis leads off and hits one out to deep left to tie the game. Al Weis, Donn. The seventh home run of his entire career, and the only one he has ever hit in this ballpark.

Donn: And nobody in our dugout was surprised, Ralph — well, maybe a little. But look at Al's week. He led this club in hitting in the Series, and he played second base like the ball was tied to a string. People keep calling this a team of miracles. It was not a miracle. It was twenty-five men who could all play. Al Weis hitting a home run to tie a World Series game is just the one nobody believed.

Ralph: And through all of it, Jerry Koosman. Three runs in the third inning — two of them on home runs, one by the pitcher — and after that, one hit over the last six innings, and one walk all day. But he walked Frank Robinson to start the ninth. Be honest — how was your heart?

Donn: Going a little fast, Ralph, I will not lie to you. But that is who Kooz is. He bore down, got Boog to hit into the force, and finished the game himself. He won Game Two in Baltimore when we had to have it, and he won this one. If the writers had given that Most Valuable Player trophy to Jerry Koosman, I would have carried it over to him myself.

Ralph: Last thing. The final out. Davey Johnson lifts it to left field, and who catches it? Cleon Jones — the man whose shoe started the whole comeback catches the last out of the World Series. And then fifty-seven thousand people came over the walls.

Donn: Full circle, Ralph. Cleon gets hit, I hit one out, Cleon catches the last one — and in between, this whole season happened. A year ago I was a Pittsburgh Pirate wondering if my career was finished. In April I was retired. And tonight I am standing here with you as a world champion. If somebody had written that in a book, nobody would have believed it. I can hardly believe it, and I was there.

Ralph: Donn Clendenon — three home runs, the Most Valuable Player of the World Series, and the finishing touch on the Miracle Mets. Thank you, Donn.

Donn: Thank you, Ralph. And thank you to the people of New York. This championship is theirs as much as it is ours.