LA’s Greatest: No. 9 Don Drysdale
Every dominant rotation has one. Every World Series caliber rotation is anchored by at least one. They are a one of a kind breed: fierce, flaming-throwing pitchers who win or die trying, and during the 1960s, the Dodgers had two –one from Brooklyn and one from Los Angeles. Who was Los Angeles’s hometown hero? Don Drysdale.
Drysdale came to Los Angeles in the fall of 1957 along with Vin Scully, Roy Campanella, and Sandy Koufax, as a carryover from the Brooklyn era. Known for his grit and temper on the mound, Drysdale struck fear into batters with his max effort mentality, which led him to the second most wins in team history, 209.
A local product, Drysdale was born in Van Nuys in 1936, but made his debut at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn at the young age of 19. Used sporadically and tallying 99 innings of work out of the bullpen and as a spot starter, he posted a solid 2.56 ERA as a rookie, earning him a spot in the rotation in 1957. That year, the Dodgers last in Brooklyn, Drysdale settled in nicely as a permanent starter, going 17-9 with a 2.69 ERA as a 20-year-old, setting the stage for one of the most consistent and dominant careers in Los Angeles sports history.
Coupled with both Koufax and Drysdale for their first decade in Los Angeles, the Dodgers made it clear that they were going to be a dominant force in the National League through their pitching, rivaling the St. Louis Cardinals and Bob Gibson. Along with the opening of Dodger Stadium, the prototypical “pitchers ballpark” in 1962, the Dodgers won three World Series titles in their first ten seasons in Los Angeles, a feat that the Lakers never matched.
From 1958 to 1968, Drysdale led the league three times in strikeouts, and posted an ERA of 2.95, all while playing the role of “iron man” in the Dodger’s rotation. As Koufax wore down, Drysdale seemed to get stronger, leading the majors in games in every season from 1962-1965, while totaling a mind-boggling 155 complete games and 44 shutouts.
As the years went by in his career, Drysdale learned to shed part of his reputation for the dramatic, and curbed his hit-by-pitch totals after leading all pitchers in the category in each of his first four seasons in Los Angeles. But he still had an edge on the mound that was nearly unprecedented. Drysdale once said, “I hate all hitters. I start a game mad and I stay that way until it’s over.”
He owned the mound, and hitters themselves knew it. Drysdale didn’t play the games of current pitchers, as the phrase “pitch around” would have never come to mind for the big righty. According to former Cardinal Mike Shannon, “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.” And that he did, finishing his career with 154 bean-balls, not suprisingly more than his total number of intentional walks, 123.
It was his tenacity that tailored his game for consistency. While he only won 20 games twice, Drysdale put together a magical season in 1962, winning 25 games on his way to his lone Cy Young trophy. Koufax’s 2.54 ERA kept Drysdale from the triple crown, as the right hander led the league in wins, strikeouts, innings, starts and batters faced. He even made a run at the MVP, finishing fifth behind baseball greats Maury Wills, Willie Mays, Tommy Davis and Frank Robinson. It was the opening season at Chavez Ravine, and judging by the performance of the Dodger rotation, Drysdale helped set the tone for the future LA aces that feasted off of the pitchers’ friendly ballpark, like Don Sutton, Fernando Valenzuela and Orel Hershiser.
Drysdale impact on the city of Los Angeles can hardly be described, especially since he was the city’s first hometown superstar to play America’s Pastime at home. He had his imfamous number 53 retired to Dodgers lore in 1984, and until his untimely death in 1993, he was just as much of a part of Los Angeles Dodgers history as Vin Scully. Although he was part of three championships as a player, Drysdale won a fourth ring in Los Angeles in 1988 in his first year as a Dodger broadcaster.
Prior to re-joinging the Dodgers for their ‘improbable’ run to the 1988 World Series title, Drysdale served as a broadcaster for four other baseball clubs including eight seasons with Dick Enberg in Anaheim covering the California Angels. In addition to baseball, he become even more synonomous with Los Angeles sports as a whole, when he even added color to Enberg’s LA Rams broadcasts in the late 1970s. He was as strong and diverse of a commentator as he was a player, and unfortunately in 1993, died doing what he loved best, covering the Dodgers on a road trip to Montreal, the city where his broadcasting career began in 1970.
While Drysdale lacked the “all-time” career of Koufax, and the glitz of Nolan Ryan, he certainly earned his place in not only baseball and Dodger lore, but in Los Angeles sports history, coming in as our ninth greatest LA athlete of all-time.
For up-to-the-minute buzz, follow us on Twitter and join our Facebook Fan Page.