Don Drysdale

Donald Scott "Don" Drysdale (July 23, 1936 – July 3, 1993) was a Major League Baseball player and Hall of Fame right-handed pitcher with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He was one of the dominant starting pitchers of the 1960s, and became a radio and television broadcaster following his playing career.

Early life
Drysdale was born in Van Nuys, Los Angeles, California and attended Van Nuys High School, where one of his classmates was actor Robert Redford. While there have been assertions that Redford also played on the high school baseball team with Drysdale, and Drysdale covered for Redford by backing these up, classmates recall that Redford never actually played baseball.

Playing career
Pitching for the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers, he teamed with Sandy Koufax during the late 1950s and early-middle 1960s to form one of the most dominating pitching duos in history. The hurler (nicknamed "Big D" by fans) used brushback pitches and a sidearm fastball to intimidate batters, similar to his fierce fellow Hall of Famer Bob Gibson. His 154 hit batsmen remains a modern National League record.

Drysdale was also considered a good hitter for a pitcher. In a total of 14 seasons, he had 218 hits, including 29 home runs, and was occasionally used as a pinch-hitter.

In 1962, Drysdale won 25 games and the Cy Young Award. In 1968, he set Major League records with six consecutive shutouts and 58 consecutive scoreless innings; the latter record was broken by fellow Dodger Orel Hershiser 20 years later. In 1963, he struck out 251 batters and won World Series Game 3 at Los Angeles' Dodger Stadium over the Yankees, 1–0. In 1965, he was the Dodgers' only .300 hitter and tied his own National League record for pitchers with seven home runs. That year he won 23 games and helped the Dodgers to their third World Championship in Los Angeles. He ended his career with 209 wins, 2,486 strikeouts, 167 complete games and 49 shutouts. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1984, and had his number 53 officially retired at Dodger Stadium on July 1, 1984. (He was the last player on the Dodgers who had played for Brooklyn.)

Drysdale took part in a famous salary holdout in the spring of 1966 along with Koufax, with both finally signing contracts just before the season opened. This holdout was the beginning of what would eventually become collective bargaining.

Broadcasting career
A chronically sore shoulder forced Drysdale to retire during the 1969 season. The next year he started a broadcasting career that would continue through the rest of his life: first for the Montreal Expos (1970–1971), then the Texas Rangers (1972), California Angels (1973–1979, 1981), Chicago White Sox (1982–1987), NBC (1977), ABC (1978–1986), and finally back in Los Angeles with the Dodgers (from 1988 until his death in 1993). He also worked with his Angels' partner Dick Enberg on Los Angeles Rams football broadcasts from 1973–1976.

While at ABC Sports, Drysdale not only did baseball telecasts, but also Superstars and Wide World of Sports. In 1979, Drysdale covered the World Series Trophy presentation ceremonies for ABC. On October 11, 1980, Keith Jackson called an Oklahoma-Texas college football game for ABC in the afternoon, then flew to Houston to call Game 4 of the NLCS between the Houston Astros and Philadelphia Phillies. In the meantime, Drysdale filled-in for Jackson on play-by-play for the early innings.

In 1984, Drysdale did play-by-play (alongside Reggie Jackson and Earl Weaver) for the National League Championship Series between the San Diego Padres and Chicago Cubs. On October 6, 1984 at San Diego's Jack Murphy Stadium, Game 4 of the NLCS ended when Padres first baseman Steve Garvey hit a two run home run off Lee Smith. Drysdale on the call:


 * Deep right field, way back. Cotto going back to the wall...it's gone! Home run Garvey! And there will be a tomorrow!

The Padres, who rallied from a 2–0 deficit in the best-of-five series against the Cubs won the decisive Game 5 the next day (thus, winning their first ever National League pennant).

In his last ever ABC assignment, Drysdale interviewed the winners in the Boston Red Sox' clubhouse following Game 7 of the 1986 American League Championship Series against the California Angels.

While broadcasting for the White Sox, Drysdale generated some controversy while covering a heated argument between an umpire and Sox manager Tony LaRussa. LaRussa pulled up the third base bag and hurled it into the outfield, to the approval of the Comiskey Park crowd, and ensuring his ejection. Drysdale remarked, "Go get 'em, Dago!"

For the Sox, Drysdale broadcast the 300th victory of Tom Seaver, against the host New York Yankees in 1985. His post-game interview with Seaver was carried live by both the Sox' network and the Yankees' longtime flagship television station WPIX.

1987
Drysdale hosted a nationally syndicated radio show called Radio Baseball Cards. 162 episodes were produced with stories and anecdotes told by current and former Major League Baseball players. The highlight of the series were numerous episodes dedicated to the memory and impact of Jackie Robinson as told by teammates, opponents and admirers. Radio Baseball Cards aired on 38 stations, including WNBC New York, KSFO San Francisco and WEEI Boston, as a pre-game show. A collector's edition of the program was re-released in 2007 as a podcast.

1988
Drysdale conducted all of the National League player interviews for the Baseball Talk series in 1988 (Joe Torre did the same for the American League).

On September 28, 1988, fellow Dodger Orel Hershiser surpassed Drysdale when Hershiser finished the season with a record 59 consecutive scoreless innings pitched. In his final start of the year, Hershiser needed to pitch 10 shutout innings to set the mark – meaning not only that he would have to prevent the San Diego Padres from scoring, but that his own team would also need to fail to score in order to ensure extra innings. The Dodgers' anemic offense was obliging, however, and Hershiser pitched the first 10 innings of a scoreless tie, with the Padres eventually prevailing 2–1 in 16 innings. Hershiser almost did not pitch in the 10th inning, in deference to Drysdale, but was convinced to take the mound and try to break the record. When Hershiser broke Drysdale's record, Drysdale went to hug him, and said, "Oh, I'll tell ya, congratulations... And at least you kept it in the family."

Drysdale also called Kirk Gibson's walk-off home run in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series for the Dodgers Radio Network:


 * Well, the crowd is on its feet and if there was ever a preface to Casey at the Bat it would have to be the ninth inning. Two out. The tying run aboard, the winning run at the plate, and Kirk Gibson, standing at the plate. Eckersley working out of the stretch, here's the three-two pitch...and a drive hit to right field (losing voice) WAY BACK! IT'S GONE! IT'S GONE! (After 2 minutes of crowd noise) This crowd will not stop! They can't believe the ending! And this time, Mighty Casey did NOT strike out!!!!

Personal
Drysdale married Ginger Dubberly in 1958, with whom he had a daughter, Kelly. They divorced in 1982. On November 1, 1986, he married basketball player Ann Meyers, who took the name Ann Meyers-Drysdale and survived him in death. It was the first time that a married couple were members of their respective sports' Halls of Fame. Drysdale and Meyers had three children together: Don Junior ("DJ") (son), Darren (son), and Drew (daughter). In 1990, Drysdale published his autobiography, Once a Bum, Always a Dodger.

Death
Drysdale was 56 when he died of a heart attack in his hotel room in Montreal, Quebec, on July 3, 1993. Radio station employees were sent to look for him when he failed to make the bus for Olympic Stadium where the Dodgers were to play the Montreal Expos. Hotel staff entered his room and found him face down, near his bed. The coroner estimated that he had been dead for 18 hours.

Drysdale's broadcasting colleague Vin Scully, who was instructed not to say anything on the air until Drysdale's family was notified, announced the news of his death by saying "Never have I been asked to make an announcement that hurts me as much as this one. And I say it to you as best I can with a broken heart." Fellow broadcaster Ross Porter told his radio audience, "I just don't believe it, folks." Drysdale was replaced by Rick Monday in the broadcast booth.

Among the personal belongings found in Drysdale's hotel room was a cassette tape of Robert F. Kennedy's victory speech after the 1968 California Democratic presidential primary, a speech given only moments before Senator Kennedy's assassination. In the speech, Kennedy had noted, to the cheers of the crowd, that Drysdale had pitched his sixth straight shutout that evening. Drysdale had apparently carried the tape with him wherever he went since Kennedy's murder.

Drysdale's body was cremated at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Quotations

 * “Batting against him [Don Drysdale] is the same as making a date with the dentist.” – Dick Groat
 * “Don Drysdale would consider an intentional walk a waste of three pitches. If he wants to put you on base, he can hit you with one pitch.” – Mike Shannon
 * “The trick against Drysdale is to hit him before he hits you.” – Orlando Cepeda
 * “I hated to bat against Drysdale. After he hit you he'd come around, look at the bruise on your arm and say, ‘Do you want me to sign it?’” – Mickey Mantle
 * "For every Dodger they [the Giants' pitchers] knock down, I'll knock down two of theirs—and they won't be .220 hitters, either." – Drysdale, still on the subject of brushback pitches; quoted from the Los Angeles Times
 * "I bet right now you wish I was Jewish, too," Drysdale said to his manager, Walter Alston, after Drysdale replaced Sandy Koufax on Yom Kippur in 1965 and lost 8-2, because Koufax would not pitch on the Jewish holy day.
 * "I hate all hitters. I start a game mad and I stay that way until it's over."
 * "He talks very well for a guy who had two fingers in his mouth all of his life." - Gene Mauch

Television
Drysdale was a popular guest star in several television programs:
 * The Greatest American Hero (episode "The Two Hundred Mile an Hour Fastball", which was first broadcast on November 4, 1981 as a broadcaster for the California Stars.
 * The Brady Bunch episode "The Dropout", which was first broadcast on September 25, 1970.
 * The Donna Reed Show episodes "The Man in the Mask," first broadcast in 1962; "All Those Dreams," first broadcast in 1963; and "Play Ball" and "My Son the Catcher," both first broadcast in 1964. In all four episodes Drysdale played himself, and in "All Those Dreams" he appeared with first wife, Ginger, and daughter Kelly.
 * Leave It to Beaver episode "Long Distance Call", which was first broadcast on June 16, 1962.
 * The Rifleman episode "Skull", which was first broadcast on January 1, 1962.
 * The Millionaire episode "Millionaire Larry Maxwell", which was first broadcast on March 1, 1960.
 * With his first wife, Ginger, on the 26th February 1959 edition of You Bet Your Life with host Groucho Marx. The episode was released on the 2006 DVD "Groucho Marx: You Bet Your Life – 14 Classic Episodes".
 * In 1959, Drysdale appeared as a mystery challenger on the TV panel show To Tell the Truth.

Film
The number "53" used for Disney's Herbie the Love Bug was inspired by Drysdale.