Don Drysdale's Hall of Fame Career

"Hitting Against Don Drysdale was like Making a Date with a Dentist"

Orlando Cepeda, a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, once had this to say about batting against the Dodgers' Don Drysdale. "The trick about hitting against Don Drysdale is to hit him before he hits you." Don Drysdale still holds the National League mark for most hit batsmen, with 154, and he was not shy about knocking a batter or two down if they tried to crowd the plate. "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," is how Don Drysdale explained hitting. "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." And this was Don Drysdale's philosophy about pitching. Of course, it helped that Don Drysdale was a six-foot six right-hander and had an overpowering fastball!

Don Drysdale came to the Brooklyn Dodgers at the age of nineteen in 1956 and went 5-5 while working out of the bullpen and occasionally starting. On June 5th, 1957, Don Drysdale tossed the first of what would be 49 shutouts in the big leagues when he blanked the Cubbies by a 4-0 count. In what would be the Dodgers last season in Brooklyn, Don Drysdale went 17-9. The team jumped to the West Coast in 1958, and Don Drysdale slumped to a 12-13 record. He improved to 17-13 the following campaign, and the Dodgers made their first World Series appearance as a Los Angeles based squad when they met the Chicago White Sox in October. Don Drysdale pitched Game Three and emerged victorious; despite allowing eleven hits in seven innings, he gave up just one run. The Dodgers won the Series in six games.