The day McNally got mad

Dave McNally wasn’t known for dramatics or being a hot-headed troublemaker. Yet once, in May 1967, he got called on the carpet for losing his temper.

The Orioles were in a funk then. Coming off their 1966 World series triumph, the 1967 season turned into a letdown. By May 8, they had lost three straight games to the Tigers in Detroit and were in eighth place in the American League, four and one-half games off the pace.

Symptomatic of the Birds’ troubles, slugger and 1966 Triple Crown winner Frank Robinson hadn’t gotten a homer in his last 44 at-bats. As he said in May 8, 1967, article in the Baltimore Sun, when he was trying to lighten up the clubhouse mood, “Only the home run hitters drive Cadillacs. That’s my wife sitting out there in the Ford.”

That sense of malaise seemed to have rubbed off on McNally, who was on the losing end of a three-hit, 4–0 shutout thrown by Tigers’ starter Joe Sparma.

Detroit put the game out of a reach with a three-run outburst in the fifth inning off “snake bitten ” McNally, as writer Phil Jackman described his performance. The frame started with McNally walking a Tigers batter and then throwing Sparma’s bunt far above Luis Aparicio’s head at second base. McNally next ran right by Don Wert’s bunt, and the bases were loaded with no outs.

It got worse. McNally threw three straight balls to Dick McAuliffe. And he became so angry with umpire Jerry Neudecker’s calls that he rushed the plate to verbalize his ire, and the ump threw threw McNally out of the game. Game watchers saw McNally appear to have the intention of walking over Neudecker during the confrontation.

Baseball rules stipulated automatic ejection for a pitcher who came to the plate to dispute a call. Few fans knew this, and even fewer could remember seeing a starting pitcher tossed out for this infraction

Nine days later, McNally was summoned to Boston for a session with AL President Joe Cronin. He wanted "a little talk about the matter,” McNally said afterwards, according to a May 17, 1967 article in the Baltimore Sun.

Cronin levied a fine and a reprimand to McNally for his action. He was not however, suspended.

McNally declined to say how much he was fined. He did sound chastened though, saying, “Mr. Cronin treated me very fairly” after the first temper tantrum and banishment of his four- and one-half-year major-league career.