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Originally Posted by tnfoto
Pretty sure he's talking about Clank, Curt Blefary, who died in 2001. |
No, no, Blefary was a Yankee, never a Met. (He does go on the "dead
Ball Four cast members" pile, though, as he was an Astro when Bouton got there.) "Clink" was Clendenon; I guess the nickname didn't come until he arrived in NY, which is why
Buccos didn't know of it.
From Mets Merized Online's tribute to Donn:
Heroes of '69: Donn Clendenon, the Final Piece of the Puzzle
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The Mets had the pitching. The Mets had the defense. Now the Mets had the power. He came to be known as “Clink” or “Big Clink.” Standing at 6-4 and 205 pounds, the big 1B with the big glove and bigger bat led the Mets down the stretch.
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They don't give the etymology of the nickname but I'd guess it was either about Donn being the "missing link" the Mets needed (before the trade, Gil Hodges had tried a convoluted platoon where Kranepool would play 1B against righties with Cleon Jones in LF, but against lefties, Cleon would come in and play 1B with Ron Swoboda in LF; after Art Shamsky got healthy and Rod Gaspar played himself out of the RF job, Gil sent Art and Rocky to RF and Cleon to LF, full-time, but now he needed a RH 1B) and "link" and "Big C" or whatever they called Donn based on his surname evolved into "Clink"…or it was about Clendenon saying that playing in Montreal (where he'd been held captive to avoid having to reunite with Harry Walker in Houston) was like being in jail, "the clink".
Or maybe it was something else. But I don't think it was an onomatopoetic knock on Donn's fielding, the way "Clank" was for Blefary (whose preferred nickname was "Buff", as in "Big Buffalo"). The Astros used to slap his hand and go "give me some steel, baby". Clendenon was good with the glove.