Saturday, February 22, 2025, 5:48PM |  31°
MENU
Advertisement
Donn Clendenon, then an infielder with the Pirates, played a major role in the postponement of their 1968 season opener.
1
MORE

When Martin Luther King Jr. died, his 'little brother' Donn Clendenon helped the Pirates do the right thing

AP

When Martin Luther King Jr. died, his 'little brother' Donn Clendenon helped the Pirates do the right thing

Anniversaries can seem arbitrary — it shouldn’t take a nice, round number to make anyone reflect on important events and the passage of time, but that’s usually how it works, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in Memphis, 50 years ago Wednesday, is as important as it gets.

A small, but not insignificant, element of April 4, 1968, and its aftermath is how the sports world responded. Major League Baseball, from the start, was the outlier; opening day was scheduled three days later, on Monday, and commissioner William Eckert’s grand plan was to let each club decide how to proceed, rather than take control and do the right thing.

History hasn’t looked kindly on Eckert for that, as it shouldn’t. As detailed in a well-reported, interesting piece at The Undefeated, without the Pirates, Eckert may have come off even worse. MLB eventually pushed the start of its season back until Wednesday, the day after King’s funeral — but that wouldn’t have happened without a set of stands that began with the Pirates.

Advertisement

When the Astros, who were set to play host to the Pirates, initially opted not to postpone the game, Roberto Clemente, Maury Wills and Donn Clendenon held a Friday meeting of the team’s 11 black players in Clendenon’s hotel room. There, they unanimously voted to sit out an exhibition game Sunday and the first two games of the season, Monday and Tuesday in Houston.

A raging lumberyard fire on North Homewood Avenue late in the afternoon of April 8, 1968, cast huge clouds of smoke over the area.
Steve Mellon and Julian Routh
50 years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination sparked a conflagration in Pittsburgh

On Saturday, the entire team voted the same way. A joint statement from Clemente and pitcher Dave Wickersham, who is white, ran in the Pittsburgh Press the next day.

“We are doing this because we respect what Dr. King has done for mankind,” they declared. “Dr. King was not only concerned with Negro or whites but also poor people. We owe this gesture to his memory and his ideals.” Eventually, the rest of the league fell in line.

The Undefeated story is worth your time. It’s also worth remembering and reinforcing just how close Clendenon was to King, a longtime friend and mentor.

Advertisement

Both were from Atlanta, and both attended Morehouse College. Typically, older students were assigned freshmen to help as “big brothers.” King had already graduated, but he still took on the job with Clendenon.

Makes sense; Clendenon told the Press that King “talked me into” attending Morehouse in the first place. In high school, Clendenon was a baseball, football and basketball star, and he wanted to attend UCLA. His mother and stepfather pushed for Morehouse, an epicenter of the civil rights movement and African-American academia and culture.

His mother, Helen, wanted him to be a doctor; Clendenon’s father, who died when he was six months old, was a college professor. Clendenon’s stepfather, Nish Williams, was a 13-year Negro League veteran and a successful restaurateur. It took King, already a family friend, to seal the deal.

When Clendenon made it to Morehouse, having King around didn’t seem to hurt, either. From a SABR biography of Clendenon:

King fulfilled the big brother’s job—helping Clendenon adjust to the school over occasional dinners in the King home. Clendenon had an open invitation to drop by, and if Martin Jr. wasn’t there, he had the ear of Martin Sr. (Class of 1926 and future trustee of the school); Martin Jr.’s wife, Coretta Scott King; or Martin’s influential sister Christine King (a 1948 graduate of Spelman, Morehouse’s sister school, and the alma mater of Clendenon’s and King’s mothers). And if not that, the young athlete could appreciate the home-cooked meals.

The connections didn’t stop; after graduation from Morehouse, Clendenon briefly worked as a school teacher with King’s sister, Christine. King also helped Clendenon improve working conditions at Scripto, an Atlanta pen manufacturer where he worked in the offseason.

Later in life, Clendenon wound up earning a law degree from Duquesne, beating a midlife cocaine addiction and working as a chemical dependency counselor. He died in 2005 of leukemia at 70 years old.

As for the 1968 season, it was Clendenon’s last with the Pirates. The Expos took him in the expansion draft and traded him midseason to the Mets, who he helped lead to a title a few months later. He won World Series MVP; the 50th anniversary will be Oct. 16, 2019.

First Published: April 5, 2018, 6:33 p.m.

RELATED
SHOW COMMENTS  
Join the Conversation
Commenting policy | How to Report Abuse
If you would like your comment to be considered for a published letter to the editor, please send it to letters@post-gazette.com. Letters must be under 250 words and may be edited for length and clarity.
Partners
Advertisement
The University of Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning
1
business
Amid funding uncertainty, Pitt pauses doctoral admissions
A new report advises retirees in 2025 to aim for just 3.7% when withdrawing from savings -- down from 4%. Over a 30-year retirement, that could mean the difference between financial security or outliving your cash in your 80s or 90s, financial experts say.
2
business
How much can retirees safely withdraw from their nest eggs? Financial experts weigh in.
Steelers receiver Calvin Austin III, left, celebrates with teammate George Pickens after scoring a 23-yard touchdown against the Cleveland Browns during the fourth quarter in the game at Huntington Bank Field on November 21, 2024.
3
sports
Steelers position analysis: Is there a path forward at wide receiver with George Pickens?
The Linden Street Tunnel in Duquesne on the Steel Valley Trail is a segment of the Great American Passage (GAP). The trail group wants to paint a mural on the graffiti-plagued tunnel.
4
local
Military 'Ghost Bomber' that landed in the Mon River in 1956 might be depicted in proposed mural
Preston Coleman, 52, was beaten and strangled inside an Aliquippa VFW on Jan. 5, 2025, in what police described as a vicious, unprovoked attack.
5
news
Bartender working at Aliquippa VFW during beating that left man unconscious facing charges
Donn Clendenon, then an infielder with the Pirates, played a major role in the postponement of their 1968 season opener.  (AP)
AP
Advertisement
LATEST sports
Advertisement
TOP
Email a Story