[citation needed] In addition to academic excellence, Clendenon's new stepfather decided he was going to make his stepson into a baseball player.

[citation needed] Clendenon graduated as a letterman in nine sports at Booker T. Washington High School in Atlanta, Georgia, and received a host of scholarship offers.

Just before Clendenon arrived in 1952, the freshman class were assigned "Big Brothers" to help the students acclimate themselves to Morehouse and college life.

Williams convinced Clendenon to attend a Pittsburgh Pirates try-out camp in 1957, and he signed with the team as an amateur free agent shortly afterwards.

With first base prospect Al Oliver waiting in the wings, the Pirates left Clendenon unprotected for the 1968 Major League Baseball expansion draft, and he was selected by the Montreal Expos.

He was batting .240 with four home runs and 14 RBI when the Expos dealt him to the New York Mets on June 15, 1969, in exchange for Steve Renko, Kevin Collins and two minor leaguers.

The Mets were in second place, nine games back of Leo Durocher's Chicago Cubs in the newly aligned National League East, when they acquired Clendenon.

On September 24, Clendenon swung the big bat against the St. Louis Cardinals with a three-run home run and a solo shot to clinch the NL East.

With first base prospects Mike Jorgensen and John Milner also both waiting in the wings, Clendenon became the odd man out, and was released by the Mets at the end of the 1971 season.

Three weeks after Clendenon's release, the Cardinals dealt Alou to the Oakland Athletics and spent the rest of the season with a revolving door at first base.

After retiring, Clendenon returned to Pittsburgh and earned a Juris Doctor degree from Duquesne University in 1978, then began practicing law in Dayton, Ohio.

[12] He eventually entered a drug rehabilitation facility in Ogden, Utah, and during a physical examination in connection with his treatment, learned he had leukemia.

That prompted his move to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in 1987, where he worked with Carlsen, Carter, Hoy & Eirenberg before becoming general counsel to the Interstate Audit Corporation.