DON DRYSDALE, 56, DIES OF HEART ATTACK (2024)

Don Drysdale, who teamed with Sandy Koufax to form baseball's best 1-2 pitching punch for the Los Angeles Dodgers of the 1960s, was found dead Saturday in his hotel room, the team announced.

Drysdale, 56, died of a heart attack, the team said. Lt. Rick Rizzetto of the Montreal police said the body was found Saturday afternoon, but that a medical examiner estimated the time of death as shortly after midnight Friday.Drysdale is the second Dodgers Hall of Famer to die in the last week. Catcher Roy Campanella died of heart attack on June 26.

"I was just with him at Campy's funeral," former Dodgers reliever Clem Labine said from Vero Beach, Fla. "Holy Toledo! Of all the things to happen. It's just hard to believe."

Outfielder Tommy Davis was one of the Dodgers' leading hitters of the period.

"I knew Campy very very well, and Don . . . It's scary," Davis said. "It's scary to realize that I'm getting older and things happen. It's very scary."

Larry Sherry, a pitcher with the Dodgers from 1958 to 1963, said he was about to send a sympathy card to Campanella's family when he learned of Drysdale's death.

"I just can't fathom this. This is really something. You play a long time and live a long time, and a lot of guys aren't here now," Sherry said.

Drysdale, who won the 1962 Cy Young Award as baseball's best pitcher, had been a broadcaster with the Dodgers since 1988.

One of his partners in the booth, Vin Scully, called Saturday night's program "the toughest broadcast in my life. I am stunned and brokenhearted for Ann and the children. Don was not only a Hall of Fame player and a fine broadcaster, but a dear friend and a joy to be with. I pray for the Drysdales."

Among Drysdale's survivors is his widow, Ann Meyers, a Hall of Fame basketball player at UCLA.

Scully recalled that Drysdale had undergone an angioplasty procedure in recent years.

Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda recalled Drysdale as "a good man, a great man. It's going to be a severe loss. He loved the Dodgers very, very much. He loved his family very much. What a guy. I'll tell you something, he was something as a baseball player. He was something as a man, a real man."

Best known as a fierce competitor with a hard sidearm delivery particularly tough on right-handed hitters, the 6-foot-6, 200-pound Drysdale compiled a 209-166 record with a 2.95 career earned-run average in 14 seasons with the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers.

Perhaps his most impressive achievement was a string of 58 shutout innings in 1968, a major league record that stood for 20 years until broken by current Dodgers pitcher Orel Hershiser.

"When you're around fans and they start talking baseball, that seems to be the thing they associate with me . . . that and my reputation for being mean, or the fact that I was durable and never missed a turn," Drysdale wrote in his 1990 book "Once a Bum, Always a Dodger." "Maybe that's what I'm proudest of, that I took the ball."

Citing arm problems, Drysdale retired during the 1969 season.

Drysdale, Koufax, Campanella, Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider and Jackie Robinson all made the Hall of Fame from that team along with manager Walter Alston and coach Billy Herman.

A native of Van Nuys, Calif., Drysdale broke in as a 20-year-old with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1956. He went 5-5 that season.

In 1957, the Dodgers' final season in Brooklyn, Drysdale became the ace of the staff with a 17-9 record.

His finest season was 1962, when he was 25-9 and led the National League with 41 starts, 3141/3 innings and 287 strikeouts.

He also was 23-12 in 1965.

Drysdale, inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1984, led the league in games started four times, in strikeouts three times and innings pitched twice.

No pitcher was more feared by hitters than the whip-armed Drysdale, whose easy smile off the field was replaced by a sneer when he was on the mound.

"Once the manager came out to the mound," Drysdale said, "and instructed me to walk a batter. I wound up hitting him instead. Why waste four pitches when one will do?

"Sooner or later you have to say it's my ball and half the plate is mine. Only I never let on which half of the plate I wanted."

Rene Lachemann, manager of the Florida Marlins, was a batboy for the Dodgers from 1960 to 1962. "As far as a player and a competitor, there weren't many like him. He managed to harness his temper and he made it to the Hall of Fame. The last time I saw him, he was happy, and he was happy for me that I had a manager's job."

Koufax and Drysdale were mates on another kind in 1966, in the days before free agency and player agents. They held out in tandem, missing spring training before settling for more than $100,000 each, the first pitchers to reach six figures.

Drysdale was in his fifth season as a Dodgers broadcaster and his 22nd overall in the booth. His career included 10 years with ABC.

Drysdale pitched in five World Series, helping the Dodgers win three, and took part in 10 All-Star games.

He was 3-3 with a 2.95 ERA in World Series play. He pitched a 1-0 shutout in Game 3 in 1963 as the Dodgers swept the New York Yankees.

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A powerfully built right-handed hitter, Drysdale batted .300 with seven home runs in 1965. He also hit seven homers in 1958 and had 29 for his career.

In recent years, Drysdale had become a critic of modern-day players.

"You have to wonder when two players of different teams have the same agent," he said. "Who are these players really loyal to, the agent or their teams?

"You don't see 15 guys going out for a beer anymore. You see 24 guys living in 24 different single rooms on the road, and in some instances, taking 24 different cabs to the stadium."

DON DRYSDALE, 56, DIES OF HEART ATTACK (2024)

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