Big D Touched Many With Great Pitching, Greater Personality

Last Saturday at the ballpark in heaven, Campanella whispered to Clemente: “Don’t try to dig in, Drysdale is starting tonight.”

Rest in peace, Big D, and thanks a million for all the thrills you gave us down here.

KATYA CREASON

Los Angeles

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Some of my earliest childhood memories are of ballgames at my father’s side in Dodger Stadium--a glove on one hand and a hot dog in the other. These fond memories undoubtedly color my view, but Sandy Koufax and Drysdale are the best pitching tandem I have ever seen.

Though their personalities were so very different--Koufax the introverted artist and Drysdale the big, folksy kid--each could completely dominate a game with power and force of will. I will always admire Koufax for his extraordinary abilities, magnificent grace and genuine humility. He was the pure pitcher. But if, as Vin Scully says, Koufax was epitomized by applause, then for Big D it was a rebel yell.

Don was the one we got to know and considered a buddy. As a broadcaster, he talked baseball more than reported the game. His easy smile carried across the airwaves.

In this era of poorly chosen and reluctant role models, long-term contracts for mediocre performance and just a plain lack of sportsmanship, Don Drysdale’s passing calls to mind a more innocent time when professionalism seemed to spring from a love and, indeed, a reverence for the game of baseball.

Drysdale understood a code of conduct that certainly included knockdown pitches but was primarily based upon respect for one’s competitor. The customary response to high-and-tight was increased intensity, not bench-clearing brawls. Hank Aaron knew the proper response to Drysdale’s chin music.

Several years ago, I went to Drysdale’s restaurant in Hawaii, not so much for a hot dog and cola as to conjure up memories of ballgames with Dad and Sandy and Don. I was blessed. We all were.

ROB STOCKLY

Sierra Madre

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As I was watching the Dodger game tonight, I received a call from my mother telling me that my cousin, Donald Scott Drysdale, had died in Montreal. I was shocked and saddened. We had all lost one heck of a guy.

My personal experiences with Don were many and I could fill many pages telling of the things he did for me. Even though he was a superstar, he still had time to take care of family.

On one occasion, he heard I was in need of a glove for the coming high school season. He immediately gave me one his new personal models. And I’ll never forget his taking me to the old Wrigley Field in Los Angeles to work out with the Dodgers during the winter. And he made arrangements for me to shag balls in the outfield before a game at the Coliseum.

Don always found a way to secure passes to Dodger games for his family. On the night he set the record for consecutive scoreless innings, I asked if he had a lot of requests for tickets. His reply was to ask how many I needed. When I got to the park, I was astonished to see approximately 50 family members in Don’s personal rooting section. Don could not turn any of us down.

Our pain is deep now, but I take comfort in knowing he is in God’s hands.

MIKE LEY

Anaheim Hills

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I have never believed much in idols, but as I try to find the words to express my feelings for this man, I can’t stop the tears, so I must have had one.

I will miss him reminding me of how the game was played as I was growing up, and how it should be played today. But most of all, baseball will miss him.

My prayers are with his family. I hope his young children will grow up to learn what a great man their father was.

BILL NOYES

Diamond Bar

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Don Drysdale, Boy of Summer?

No, Don Drysdale, man for all seasons.

CLARENCE B. SANTOS

Los Angeles

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I enjoyed Mike Downey’s column on Don Drysdale.

I remember placing Drysdale in a commercial for General Electric’s Non-Breakable Glass. On his first pitch, he broke the glass. General Electric had to go back to the laboratory.

CHARLES H. STERN

Los Angeles

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When I think of Don Drysdale, I always remember the key game of the 1979 season when he was radio announcer for the Angels. The Yankees were at Anaheim Stadium and Bobby Grich hit a homer as Reggie Jackson ran back to the right-field fence. Don called it in this fashion: “There goes a long drive by Bobby to right-center . . . and Reggie is running back, but this ball is gone!”

The crowd noise and Don’s description . . . I can still hear it.

JIM ALLEN

Cambria, Calif.

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Big D was probably the first local hero to play for the Dodgers in Los Angeles, and there is something emotionally poignant about losing him if you grew up in L.A. in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

From a strictly selfish point of view, I will miss having him in my car and in my home, filling my life with humor, expert baseball knowledge, colorful observations and anecdotes, and a free-flowing natural warmth that excluded no one. It’s just not going to be the same without him.

DELL FRANKLIN

Cayucos, Calif.

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I thought Larry Stewart’s article reporting the death of Don Drysdale was very well done.

However, I think that the inclusion in the article of several incidents concerning Mr. Drysdale’s involvement with the law, both as a victim and as a detainee, were uncalled for, considering the circumstances.

I think consideration for Mr. Drysdale, his family and his fans would have been better served by omitting these events.

THOMAS R. DAVEY

Northridge

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Don Drysdale was a man who typified what the great game of baseball is all about. He took that wondrous walk we call life with his style of dignity and grace, giving meaning to the word class .

I will never forget the first time that I saw him. He had been brought in to pitch against the Chicago Cubs in the Coliseum one night. Tall and cherub-faced, he wore the grimace of one of the fiercest competitors I have ever seen.

His career speaks for itself, a Hall of Famer during his playing days and as an announcer who shared his great insight into the game he loved so deeply.

STEPHEN T. OAKEY

Palmdale

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The Dodgers’ struggling, Todd Worrell’s constantly ailing arm, Strawberry’s beguiling backache and Fred Claire’s inefficacy--it all seems so insignificant since the passing of Don Drysdale and Roy Campanella.

CHUCK PERI

Moreno Valley

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I grew up in the shadow of New York City in the middle ‘50s, when there were three local major league baseball teams, and I played innumerable fantasy stickball games.

Even though I loved the Giants, barely tolerated the Yankees and hated the Dodgers, and even though, as a southpaw, I had Sandy Koufax’s motion down to a T, nothing gave me more pleasure than throwing inside with smoke, and then coming back with another one in the same place and yelling, “That plate’s mine, just like Big D!”

I read once that Drysdale, when asked why he had thrown two knockdown pitches in a row to Hank Aaron, replied, “So he’d know I meant the first one.”

In my baseball dictionary, next to the word competitor and the phrase friend of baseball, there are pictures of Big D.

S.L. OBERSTEIN

Santa Monica