No Ordinary Night : No-Hitter Is Still a Defining Moment for Wright

At the far end of Home Run Park in Anaheim, beyond the snack bar, the batting cages and video games, is a shed--a broom closet at first glance. There sits the Clyde Wright Pitching School.

In that tiny office--not much bigger than the outhouse from his childhood--Wright keeps his memories.

There, with a thick Tennessee drawl, Wright will tell you about his life, from Jefferson City (Tenn.) to Anaheim, with a round-trip to Japan.

There he will tell you, in whoops and hollers, about the night he pitched a no-hitter and the nights the only thing he hit was a bottle.

There he will tell you about his son--Cleveland Indian prospect Jaret Wright--while the television blares in the background and musty smell of the years fills your nostrils.

There, where he teaches players of all ages to pitch, is the best place to sit and hear yarns of a pretty sharp ol’ country boy who done good.

Bring your boots.

“I remember when we used to steal corn for our barbecues,” said Wright, who will be inducted into the Orange County Hall of Fame Thursday.

“We’d meet at my house, [Jim] Fregosi, [Billy] Cowan, [Eddie] Fisher and others, all the single guys. One of us would go for the meat, one of us would go for the salad stuff, one of us would go for the beer and one would go to the corn field. You would leave $5 on the fence, in case the police came by. Once you got the corn in the car, you’d grab the $5 and took off.”

It was a different era for baseball, and Orange County. There were still corn fields on State College and Katella.

In 1970, Wright won 22 games and pitched a no-hitter against the Reggie Jackson-Sal Bando-Joe Rudi Oakland A’s. He had won only 20 games in the previous four years and was 1-8 in 1969. But 1970 started a run for Wright, who won 16, then 18 the next two seasons before dropping to 11-19 in 1973. He bounced from Milwaukee to Texas to Japan, before returning to Anaheim.

In 1996, Wright is a content to lean back in the only chair his “office” has and talk, sometimes loudly, about his career, which was destined from, “the moment my mother was pregnant with me.”

The center piece of Wright’s office wall is the night of July 3, 1970, when Wright no-hit the A’s. Two newspaper stories, complete with photos, are framed, with the scorecard next to them. On the shelf, is the glove he used.

It was a special night that everyone, including Wright, remembers as ordinary.

“It may have been the most boring no-hitter ever pitched,” said Ken McMullen, who hit a three-run home run in the 4-0 victory. “Basically, he had this real good screwball that everyone tried to pull.”

Wright struck out only one batter, Jackson, who whiffed another 2,596 times in his career. The game ended with a ground ball to Fregosi, who started a double play. A case of champagne was then rushed to the clubhouse.

It was the first no-hitter in Anaheim Stadium and only the second by an Angel, following Bo Belinsky’s in 1962. It came two years before Nolan Ryan made such things a weekly possibility.

“It just seemed like every other night I pitched,” Wright said. “I didn’t even know what was going on until the seventh. I looked up and they didn’t have any hits.

“I got through the eighth pretty easy. I walked back out in the ninth and thought, ‘If some sucker screws this up, I’m going to hit him between the eyes.’ I walked the first batter. Fregosi then caught a line drive and underhanded the ball right back to me. It was like, ‘I don’t want it.’ The next pitch, Felipe Alou grounded into a double play.

“Mine was the easiest no-hitter ever. I threw 98 pitches and 26 were hit.”

After the season, Jefferson City held a week, not a day, for Wright and his former Carson-Newman College coach, Sam “Frosty” Holt.

It was in that town of 5,000 that it had all begun.

“I remember my grandfather and Frosty went to persuade Clyde’s dad to let him play for the high school team,” said Cy Dannenhold, who grew up with Wright. “Clyde would get up at 6 a.m. to milk the cows. He would go to school, go to practice, and then go home and do his chores.”

Wright still tries to portray that down-home image. He is a country boy off the farm. Why, he and his five brothers played sports when they weren’t doing chores--including a game called set-back.

“We’d just kick a football from the barn all the way to the four-lane highway,” Wright said. “It was a couple miles back and forth, through the woods and over the pond.”

Said former Angel catcher Buck Rodgers: “I think Clyde has about three levels of Tennessee drawl. He has suckered everyone with them. He played the little hayseed from Tennessee, but he is a pretty sharp guy.”

As a pitcher, Wright became equally deceptive.

He went 10-0 as a senior to lead Carson-Newman, located in Jefferson City, to the 1965 NAIA national championship. He was inducted into the NAIA hall of fame on the same night he pitched the no-hitter in Anaheim.

From Jefferson City, he was signed by the Angels for $10,000, bought a new Ford Galaxie and gave the rest to his father. He spent less than a year in the minor leagues, then spent four anonymous years as an Angel pitcher.

Then he developed a screwball while playing winter ball in Puerto Rico in 1969.

“Pat Corrales was my catcher down there and he made me throw that thing,”’ Wright said. “One time Nate Colbert was up and it was 3-2. Pat called for the screwball and I shook me off. He came out said, ‘What are you saving it for? This is why you came down here to learn how to throw it and when to throw it.’ Well, I threw it and Colbert liked to break his neck.”

Wright became the winningest left-hander in Angel history with 87 and still ranks third on the list.

Wright went 9-20 with Milwaukee in 1974 and 4-6 with Texas in 1975. He then signed with the Tokyo Giants, where his drinking became a problem.

“My family was back home and there was nothing to do,” Wright said. “In fact, if it wasn’t for Roger Repoz and Charlie Manuel, I might have died. I had bottles in four different bars, because it was cheaper than buying drinks one at a time. Well, when I went on the road, Roger and Charlie would go to those bars and drink my whiskey.

“I quit when my wife said either I stop or she was leaving me. I went golfing one day and then drinking and when I came home, she was gone. When she came back, Jaret was in the van. I went to open the door and he pushed the lock down. He was 3 years old. I haven’t had a drink in 18 years.”

Wright paused a moment.

“There are two left-handed pitchers who threw no-hitters for the Angels. Both were alcoholics. Me and Bo Belinsky,” he said.

Wright leaned back in his chair and laughed, loudly at his own observation, then was on to a new one.

“I remember my brothers and I used to play in the cow pasture,” Wright said. “I used to think it was so big. I went back there last year and it looked like a pea patch. I guess after you’ve been all over the world, things just look a little different.”

But in his office, those memories are never far off, like the glove on the shelf and the clippings on the wall.

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Orange County Hall of Fame

* What: Orange County Sports Hall of Fame ceremonies and dinner.

* Date: Thursday

* Time: Ceremonies at 6 p.m., dinner at 7:30

* Location: Near Gate 6, Anaheim Stadium

* Honorees: Don Johnson, former Cypress College men’s basketball coach; Mike Lansford, former Ram kicker; Dick Tucker, former Orange Coast College and Brea Olinda High football coach; Clyde Wright, former Angel pitcher; Mark Wulfmeyer, former Troy High basketball and baseball standout.

* Background: The Hall of Fame opened in December 1993. This year’s additions brings the total of inducted members to 78.

* Tickets: $100 per person or $1,000 for a table of 10.

* Reservations: (714) 758-9882.