Big D’s Passion for Another Era

Today, most pitchers work inside gingerly, and with trepidation. Don Drysdale, the Dodger Hall of Famer who died Saturday, wasn’t like that.

Drysdale was a throwback to the brushback era of the 1950s and 1960s, when strong-armed and squinty-eyed pitchers really owned half the plate, whomever was digging into the batter’s box be damned.

In an interview from his Montreal hotel room on Friday afternoon, Drysdale spoke with passion about a different era in baseball, and of the pitch that he so successfully employed in becoming one of the most dominating figures of his--or any other--time.

“The game is just different today,” Drysdale said. “That’s all there is to it. I don’t know what their code of ethics are today, but the game is different in a lot of aspects.

“A lot of times, pitchers don’t even think about working somebody inside and then, all of a sudden, they need to do it and they see a human being up there and they haven’t worked on it.”

Drysdale placed much of the responsibility for today’s brawls on baseball’s rule-makers who, he said, have erred by giving umpires the task of warning teams when a pitcher comes too far inside on a pitch.

“It gave hitters a false sense of security,” he said. “I don’t know if they were trying to justify their position on some committee or what. It’s stupid.

“Now hitters are diving out over the plate. . . . The (brawl) that happened in Colorado with the Dodgers didn’t surprise me a bit. I’ve seen it. It didn’t surprise me even a little bit.”

Drysdale also noted that there is so much fraternization between players today that pitchers are hesitant to use the brushback pitch.

“I’d certainly have dinner with opponents, but not during the season,” he said.

But, as Drysdale acknowledged, times have changed and so, too, has the game. Blame money, blame society, blame what you will, but the part of the game that allowed Drysdale to make his living is only a small segment of baseball’s troubles in 1993.

“Ownership has a lot more to do than worry about the brushback pitch,” Drysdale said. “If they don’t get some other things in order, they won’t have to worry about the brushback pitch.”