The story of Dave McNally is being told in full detail for the first time. 

Dennis Gaub, a longtime sportswriter based in the late McNally’s hometown of Billings, Montana, published the first written biography of the longtime Orioles pitcher. The novel was released Nov. 23 at a local bookstore in Billings, and Gaub will be making an East Coast tour early next year to promote it.

Titled “Dave McNally: The Montanan Who Revolutionized Baseball,” the book chronicles the left-hander’s rise to stardom, his success in Baltimore that led to two World Series titles, and the contributions he made to the 1975 arbitration decision that paved the way for modern-day free agency in MLB.

Gaub sat down with The Baltimore Sun for a Q&A session about his upcoming book and McNally’s lasting impact on the sport. The interview was edited for length and clarity. 

You’re publishing this book right around the 50th anniversary of the 1975 Seitz decision, which abolished baseball’s reserve clause and allowed players to seek free agency. How do you reflect on McNally’s role in that decision?

Well, I fully realize that there are two other individuals. First and foremost, give Curt Flood credit for challenging the reserve system, going all the way to the Supreme Court and, sadly, losing in 1972. Officially, it’s the McNally-Messersmith case, and I don’t mean any disrespect to Andy Messersmith, but Dave, Dave went all in. 

He was back in Billings. He had called it quits on baseball. He was, and I explained this in the book, in this kind of unique situation with the Montreal Expos where they hadn’t really given him his retirement papers. He was on this reserve list, where they thought they could still maybe talk him into coming back. 

MLB Players Association executive director Marvin Miller was worried that Messersmith, who was still with the Dodgers then, and Los Angeles owner Walter O’Malley, who was a very wealthy man and the Dodgers were one of the most well-financed teams in baseball, that O’Malley and the Dodgers would dangle a big contract in Messersmith’s face, and he’d say, “OK, I’ll take it,” and there would go the arbitration case. So, Dave became the “insurance case” for Miller and for the players’ association. 

He wanted players, other players, to have options that he didn’t have when he came up, even though he had a glorious career with the Orioles. 

So, what personally drew you to writing a biography about him?

I grew up in Eastern Montana before my family moved to Billings. When I was growing up and I became a sports fan, and we didn’t then have high school baseball in Montana. Legion baseball was everything in the summer, and Billings had a team called Legion Post 4, coached by a man named Ed Bayne. He was legendary at the time, and he coached the Billings team, including the teams that Dave was on. They were like the damn Yankees back then to people elsewhere in the state, including me down in Miles City. 

Just before my family moved to Billings in ’66, I think I was a sophomore in high school, everybody in the state was cheering for the Orioles when they went against the Dodgers. And those were those innocent days when they played all the serious games during the daytime. I remember a teacher allowing us to have a transistor radio on so we could listen to the broadcast. So, that was a huge thrill.

But I finally got out of school and started my career, came to Billings, started working for the Billings Gazette, and the only interaction I had with Dave was when I was a very young sports writer the summer of ’78. He was playing in a racquetball tournament and my boss at the Gazette sent me up to talk to him, and that’s when we had a very memorable interview where he said, and I’m paraphrasing: 

“People ask me all the time if I want to go back to baseball.” 

He said, “No, I’m happy here in Billings.” 

And one of the more memorable things he said, this is kind of the nature of Montana, he said, “The World Series comes around, I just sit in my den, pop open a can of beer, watch the game and just relax.” 

He said, “When I go back to Baltimore, everybody is —” he and his wife Jean can hardly have dinner in peace. Everybody is coming up and wanting him to sign something. It wasn’t like he hated people, but he just had more peace and quiet in his new life. He was fully happy with it, and that was sadly the only time I interacted with him before he passed away. 

What do you think Orioles fans in particular will get most out of your book?

Well, if they know the glory years, especially the Earl Weaver years, although he was managed first by Billy Hitchcock and then Hank Bauer, if they look back at those years, and they can see the whole range of stars that made the Orioles the dynasty of baseball in the late ’60s and early ’70s, people like Jim Palmer and Boog Powell and the Robinsons and Mark Belanger and Mike Cuellar, etc., Dave was right there. He was a big part of it.

What Andy Etchebarren, one of his best friends, said upon his death is that there were other pitchers for the Orioles, but if there was one game you had to win, whether it was in the playoffs or the World Series, the pitcher he went to was Dave McNally. He didn’t win them all, but you could count on him to give his very best. He was very talented, but he wasn’t the most talented guy around. He was just really talented by hard work and dedication. 

McNally never got much traction on the Hall of Fame ballot, falling out of consideration after only two years. Do you think he deserves another look?

I don’t know about what he did on the mound, but the Hall of Fame includes Marvin Miller for his pathfinding, labor relations role. I think, and I’m not an expert on this, but I think that Dave’s best path is with the Era Committee. If they can be convinced to say, “Dave deserves recognition for his stand that brought down the reserve clause.” For better or for worse, some people will say for worse, but it’s light-years ahead of what they had before.

What are your plans for the book tour? How can Maryland readers find your book?

I’m hoping to make a swing across the country, including stops in places where baseball fans of a certain age know Dave. I’ve got various connections in Baltimore and elsewhere, including membership with the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) that resulted in an invitation to appear at the Baltimore chapter meeting Saturday, March 14. I’ll definitely be there. I’ve been in contact with the Ivy Bookshop in Baltimore where the book is at.

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