Don Drysdale

Star basketball player at UCLA.

Don Drysdale was born July 23, 1936, Van Nuys, California.
He died July 3, 1993 in Montréal, Québec, Canada. He died in his hotel room of a heart attack hours before he was to work the television/radio color commentary for the Los Angeles Dodgers-Montreal Expos game.

Pitcher for the National League's Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers, 1956-1969. Inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, 1984.

Took part in a publicized salary holdout in the spring of 1966 along with teammate Sandy Koufax.

Pitched 58 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings in 1968, a record which stood until Orel Hershiser topped it 20 years later.

Pitched in eight All-Star games.

Still holds the National League record for most hit batsmen (154).

Finished 5th in voting for National League MVP in 1962 and 1965.

Pitched in eight All-Star games (1959, 1961-65 and 1967-68).

Won Cy Young Award as Major League Baseball's top pitcher in 1962 for leading National League in wins (25), innings pitched (314 1/3), strikeouts (232) and games started (41).

Member of 1956 National League Champion Brooklyn Dodgers team and 1966 Los Angeles Dodgers team. Member of 1959, 1963 and 1965 World Series Champion Los Angeles Dodgers teams.

Biography in: "American National Biography". Supplement 1, pp. 169-171. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Uniform number 53 retired by the Dodgers.

Retired in mid-season in 1969 after suffering a torn rotator cuff in his pitching shoulder.

Inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1984 in the same ceremony with Pee Wee Reese.

Held the record for consecutive 200-strikeout seasons with six until Tom Seaver broke it with his seventh consecutive such season in 1974.

Was an excellent hitting pitcher; hit 29 home runs during his career and was frequently used as a pinch hitter. Was the only Dodger to hit .300 in 1965.

Made major league debut on 17 April 1956.

“Personal Quotes”

"Why use four pitches to put someone on base intentionally when I can do it with one?" (when asked why he hit a batter with a pitch instead of walking him intentionally)

"A torn rotator cuff is a cancer for a pitcher and if a pitcher gets a badly torn one, he has to face the facts, it's all over baby."

"If they knocked two of your guys down, I'd get four. You have to protect your hitters."

"In Brooklyn, it was as though you were in your own little bubble. You were all part of one big, but very close family, and the Dodgers were the main topic of everybody's conversations and you could sense the affection people had for you. I don't know that such a thing exists anymore."

"I hate all hitters. I start a game mad and I stay that way until it's over."

"It's a bottom line business where a lot of gray suits are brought in and then, within two years, these guys suddenly know everything about baseball."

"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." Source: Hall of Fame Yearbook (1989)

"Some of these guys wear beards to make them look intimidating, but they don't look so tough when they have to deliver the ball. Their abilities and their attitudes don't back up their beards."

"The pitcher has to find out if the hitter is timid, and if he is timid, he has to remind the hitter he's timid." Source: New York Times (July 9, 1979)

"When I throw a curve that hangs and it goes for a hit, I want to chew up my glove."

"When the ball is over the middle of the plate, the batter is hitting it with the sweet part of the bat. When it's inside, he's hitting it with the part of the bat from the handle to the trademark. When it's outside, he's hitting it with the end of the bat. You've got to keep the ball away from the sweet part of the bat. To do that, the pitcher has to move the hitter off the plate." Source: Words of Wisdom (William & Leonard Safire)

"When we played, World Series checks meant something. Now all they do is screw your taxes."

Don Drysdale the actor - The Rifleman — 'Skull'

Don Drysdale as Warren. He worked for Hoyt Coyle owner of the Skull Ranch. He also appeared with Chuck in "Cowboy in Africa"

Jim Flood, Connors' press agent during "The Rifleman" days noted that, "This set is a Mecca for visiting athletes. Connors seems to know them all from his baseball days. It's getting so nobody pays any attention to it." Some of the famous ballplayers who visited the set in those days included future Hall of Famers Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Duke Snider, Stan Musial and Sid Gilman, an American football coach and innovator. Other celebrities to drop in on Connors were Gene Autry, director William Wyler, Maurice Chevalier, Dodgers president Walter O'Malley, and Charlton Heston and his son Fraser.