Dodgers Dugout: The 25 greatest Dodgers of all time, No. 6: Don Drysdale
Hi, and welcome to another edition of Dodgers Dugout. My name is Houston Mitchell as we continue the top-25 countdown.
Are you a true-blue fan?
Get our Dodgers Dugout newsletter for insights, news and much more.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
Readers voted in droves, submitting 15,212 ballots by email, Twitter and Facebook. Voters were asked for their top 10 Dodgers in order from 1 to 10, with first place receiving 12 points, second place nine points, third place eight, all the way down to one point for 10th place.
The last time we did this was in 2018, and there were some changes in the rankings.
So, without further ado:
Enjoying this newsletter?
Your support helps us deliver the news that matters most. Become a Los Angeles Times subscriber.
The 25 greatest Dodgers, No. 6: DON DRYSDALE (12 first-place votes, 56,683 points)
2018 rank: 5th
Don Drysdale teamed with Sandy Koufax during the 1960s to form one of the most dominating pitching duos in history.
In 1962, Drysdale won 25 games and the Cy Young Award. In 1965, he won 23 games and helped the Dodgers to their third World Series title in L.A. In 1968, he set a record with 58 consecutive scoreless innings, a record that was broken by Orel Hershiser in 1988.
Drysdale was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1984 and had his number (53) retired by the Dodgers that same year.
Drysdale was also one of the last of the breed of pitchers who weren’t afraid to knock a batter down with a pitch to get his point across. His 154 hit batsmen is still the modern National League record. Or, as Mickey Mantle once put it, “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?’”
Drysdale himself talked about his rule for knocking down batters: “My own little rule was two for one. If one of my teammates got knocked down, then I knocked down two on the other team.”
Dodgers catcher Jeff Torborg on Drysdale: “In those days, hitters would dig a hole and really get anchored with their back foot. Willie Mays dug in sometimes with both feet and he looked up and realized it was Drysdale. I don’t think he was even thinking at the time. He called time out and filled up the hole as if to say, ‘I made a mistake. I didn’t realize he was pitching.’ VROOOOM, down he went.”
Hall of Famer Frank Robinson: “He hit me more than anyone else. He kept me going like a rocking chair. After each game I faced him, I always felt like I had been wrestling a bear. I was so tired when I left the ballpark. But I respected him for the way he went about his job.”
During the 1961 season, the second-place Dodgers were playing the first-place Reds and trailing 7-2. Drysdale was not happy. He asked to come into the game as a reliever, and everyone knew why. Manager Walter Alston sent him in the game. Drysdale came into the game in the fifth inning as a reliever and got out of a jam. Then he attempted to send a message in the sixth inning. He knocked down the leadoff batter, Don Blasingame, who popped to third. He knocked down the next batter, Vada Pinson, and was warned by plate umpire Dusty Boggess to stop. Pinson doubled. The warning went unheeded. Drysdale knocked down the next hitter, Frank Robinson, and then hit him with a pitch.
Drysdale was ejected, given a five-day suspension and fined $100. He decided that the next time the Dodgers were in Cincinnati, home to NL president Warren Giles, he would pay the fine in person. On July 19, the day a three-game series at the Reds was starting, Drysdale went to a bank and got $100 in pennies (that’s 10,000 pennies). He went to Giles’ office and put the bag of pennies, weighing 55 pounds, on Giles’ desk and said “paid in full” and walked out.
A torn rotator cuff forced Drysdale to retire in 1969 at age 33. He became a broadcaster, including a stint with the Angels from 1973 to 1979 and again in 1981. He rejoined the Dodgers as a broadcaster in 1988 and remained with the team until his death in 1993.
Drysdale’s radio call of Kirk Gibson’s World Series homer in 1988 is truly one of the great calls of all time. You can listen to it here.
“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! THIS BALL IS GONE! (followed by two minutes of crowd noise) This crowd will not stop! They can’t believe the ending! And this time, Mighty Casey did NOT strike out!”
On July 3, 1993, Drysdale was in Montreal for the Dodgers-Expos series when he died of a heart attack in his hotel room. People became concerned when he failed to show up for the bus ride to the stadium for that day’s game and hotel employees found him in his room. He was only 56.
Vin Scully was told of Drysdale’s death but couldn’t say anything about it on the air until Drysdale’s family could be notified. Once they were, he told Dodgers fans of the news, 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.”
A week earlier, Roy Campanella had died of a heart attack. Reflecting on this fact, Tommy Lasorda said, “I think God needs a battery, because he got one of the best that heaven could have ever accepted.”
Previously
NLDS schedule
Game 1: at Dodgers, Saturday
Game 2: at Dodgers, Monday
Game 3: at Mil. or Ari., Wednesday, Oct. 11
Game 4: at Mil. or Ari., Thursday, Oct. 12
Game 5: at Dodgers, Saturday, Oct. 14
All games will be on TBS. Start times have not been announced, but if the TBS website is to believed, it looks like the games will start at either 5:30 p.m. or 5.
And finally
Don Drysdale appears on “The Brady Bunch.” Watch and listen here.
Until next time...
Have a comment or something you’d like to see in a future Dodgers newsletter? Email me at [email protected], and follow me on Twitter at @latimeshouston. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
Are you a true-blue fan?
Get our Dodgers Dugout newsletter for insights, news and much more.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
