Drysdale Reaches Top Before Bottoming Out
It was 8:45 p.m. on a Saturday night at Dodger Stadium.
In the third inning, with Philadelphia shortstop Roberto Pena protecting the plate on an 0-and-2 count, a hush settled over the crowd of 55,017.
Baseball history was perhaps seconds away.
Dodger pitcher Don Drysdale, 31, wound up, delivered . . . and Pena hit a ground ball to third baseman Ken Boyer. As the crowd rose to its feet, roaring, Boyer threw carefully to first baseman Wes Parker and the ovation erupted.
Drysdale had just become the greatest shutout pitcher in the 96-year history of major league baseball.
He had just surpassed Walter Johnson’s 55-year-old record for consecutive scoreless innings. Johnson reached 55 2/3 innings in 1913.
And soon after he’d broken the record--which followed a record six consecutive shutouts--the air began hissing out of Drysdale’s balloon. The streak ended in that same game at 58 2/3 innings when Tony Taylor crossed the plate on a sacrifice fly by pinch-hitter Howie Bedell.
Drysdale was knocked out of the game in the seventh inning.
“I wanted the record so bad,” he said afterward.
“But I’m relieved that it’s over. I could feel myself go ‘blah’ when the run scored. I just let down completely. I’m sure it was the mental strain.”
At the outset, with a shaky start, it looked as if Drysdale might not make it. Seven of his first eight pitches were balls. The one strike produced a line drive out to center field.
An excellent infield play by Zoilo Versalles saved him in the first. Drysdale then retired the next four hitters to break the record.
Twenty years later, Dodger Orel Hershiser broke Drysdale’s mark with 59 consecutive scoreless innings.
Also on this date: In 1982, the Lakers won their second NBA title in three years, beating Philadelphia, 114-104, in Game 6 at the Forum. The winning coach, Pat Riley, 37, had taken over the team 11 games into the season, after Paul Westhead was fired. . . . In 1935, Omaha won the Belmont Stakes in the mud by a length and a half, sweeping the Triple Crown.
In 1965, former Los Angeles Ram and Washington Redskin defensive end Gene Brito died at 39. . . . On the same day, baseball held its first free-agent draft and Kansas City made outfielder Rick Monday, 19, of Santa Monica High and Arizona State, the first selection. . . . In 1961, the Kansas City A’s signed Lew Krausse, 18, who had pitched 18 high school no-hitters, to a record $125,000 bonus.
In 1982, famed Negro leagues pitcher Satchel Paige, who had broken into major league baseball at 42 in 1948, died at 75. . . . In 1961, the Milwaukee Braves hit four consecutive home runs in the seventh inning--by Eddie Mathews, Hank Aaron, Joe Adcock and Frank Thomas--and lost at Cincinnati, 10-8.