Denny McClain Drops 156 Lbs. After Weight Loss Surgery

DETROIT (WWJ) - Two-time Cy Young Award winner Denny McClain calls it a miracle.  He's lost 156 pounds.

"I am down 24 pants sizes," McClain told said. "I'm down a whole shoe sizes ... I had the fattest feet in Michigan; I had gorilla feet. I mean, put hair on my feet I'd look like King Kong."

The Detroit Tiger pitching star, and convicted felon, had bariatric surgery last June. He no longer needs a wheelchair and he doesn't snore.

McClain told his doctor that if he needed pounds of excess skin removed he'd donate it to a burn center.

"He said, what are you talking about? He said that skin will eventually tighten itself up; it will go away with the flow...and he was right,"McClain said. "It's amazing!"

WWJ's Newsradio 950's Roberta Jasina asked if that means he looks good naked.

"Well, I don't know if I've ever looked good naked,"  McClain replied. "But, you know, for the lack of a better term with no further explanation, I'm much more acceptable. And, by the way, I'm seeing things now I forgot I had!"

McClain said he's been keeping active.

"I'm trying to get to my playing weight. I'm close," he said. "I would just love one more time to go out to Tigers Stadium and throw one pitch and kick my leg up one time ... and see what would happen."

McClain said he got the surgery so that he could help take care of his wife Sharon diagnosed last year with Parkinson's disease.

Famous for his stellar baseball career, McClain is equally infamous in metro Detroit. In the 1980s he was sentenced to 23 years in prison on charges of racketeering, extortion, and cocaine trafficking; but that conviction was overturned. In the 90s he was convicted on charges of embezzlement, money laundering, mail fraud, and conspiracy — spending several years behind bars.