Tag: Don Drysdale

Don Drysdale’s Hall of Fame induction speech

April 12, 2019

Don Drysdale emphasizes the strain and sacrifices that come with the demanding schedule of a professional ballplayer — especially on the side of that ballplayer’s family.  A right-handed pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers for his entire career, Drysdale won the 1962 Cy Young Award, and in 1968, he set a Major League record by pitching six consecutive shutouts and ​58 2⁄3 consecutive scoreless innings.  Drysdale ended his career with 209 wins, 2,486 strikeouts, 167 complete games and 49 shutouts. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1984.

This day in baseball: Koufax and Drysdale sign

March 30, 2018

Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale signed for $130,000 and $105,000, respectively, on March 30, 1966 with the Los Angeles Dodgers.  The agreements ended a 32-day holdout in which the two pitchers had refused to report for Spring Training.  Their actions would pave the way for other players to be more aggressive when negotiating with team owners.

sandy-koufax-don-drysdale
Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale (LA Times)

This day in baseball: The first official save

April 7, 2016

The first officially-recorded save took place on April 7, 1969 by Bill Singer as the Dodgers defeated Cincinnati, 3-2, in the season opener at Crosley Field.  The game had started with Don Drysdale giving up two back-to-back home runs  on the first two pitches he threw for the season to Pete Rose and Bobby Tolan.  Drysdale managed to calm down enough for the Dodgers to make a comeback, and Singer did not give up a hit in the final three innings to close out the game.

Bill Singer
Bill Singer (ESPN.com)

Baseball 101: The strike zone

June 23, 2013

Sometimes, if you’re a pitcher, it seems elusive.  If you’re a batter, it can sometimes seem larger than life.  The strike zone — in some ways, it is baseball’s version of the Twilight Zone: sometimes it’s hard to tell where it really is.

The strike zone is the area over home plate through which a pitcher must pitch the ball in order for the pitch to be called a strike if the batter does not swing.  The idea is that the ball must pass through an area where the batter has a chance to put the ball into play if he swings at it.  According to the MLB’s Official Rules:

The STRIKE ZONE is that area over home plate the upper limit of which is a horizontal line at the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants, and the lower level is a line at the hollow beneath the kneecap. The Strike Zone shall be determined from the batter’s stance as the batter is prepared to swing at a pitched ball.

Or, to make things simpler, many regard the area from the elbows to the bottom of the knees as the vertical axis of the strike zone.

The size of the strike zone has not remained static through the years.  Major League Baseball will sometimes make the official strike zone larger or smaller in order to maintain a balance of power between pitchers and hitters.  For example, after Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth’s home run record in the 1961 season, the strike zone was stretched to extend from the top of the batter’s shoulders to the bottom of the knees.  Then, in 1968, pitchers such as Don Drysdale, Bob Gibson, and Denny McLain utterly dominated hitters.  As a result, not only was the size of the strike zone reduced in 1969, but the height of the pitchers mound was also reduced from 15 inches to 10 inches tall.

At the end of the day, though, enforcement of the strike zone lies with the home plate umpire.  As any player or fan of the game knows, the size — and, sometimes, even the shape — of the strike zone can vary from one umpire to the next.  As a result, pitchers and hitters often find themselves having to adjust their expectations according to those of the umpire.  And, sometimes, the umpire can be the most loved or the most hated person in the ballpark.