Chat with a Great Pitcher

The following interview was not heard on any of the major networks--or minor ones either. Indeed, it never took place. But it might have.

Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, here we are in the Los Angeles Dodgers' clubhouse, where teammates are congratulating Don Drysdale, who tonight has made baseball history by pitching his sixth straight shutout, a 5-0 masterpiece against the Pittsburgh Pirates, which now has run Don's streak of scoreless innings to 54, breaking Carl Hubbell's National League record of 46 1/3 shutout frames and putting the Hollywood-handsome hurler just two scoreboard zeroes shy of the alltime major-league mark held by Walter Johnson, the "Big Train" himself. Don, tell us, how does it feel to be right up there with those great names of yesteryear?

Drysdale: Oh, fine, I feel fine. But before we go any further, I'd like to say hello to my wife Ginger and my nine-year-old daughter Kelly Jean and all the gang at Drysdale's Dug Out, which, as you all know, is located on Oxnard Street in Van Nuys, California and is open nightly till 2 a.m.

Announcer: Don, you've certainly had an illustrious career with the Dodgers. You've won 197 games, more than any other Dodger hurler past or present, and you've pitched 47 shutouts, which puts you tops among all the active pitchers in baseball, and you've struck out 2,381 batters, which is only 202 short of Warren Spahn's National League record.

Drysdale: That's right, and I've also sung with Milton Berle in Las Vegas and appeared on The Rifleman and the Donna Reed Show.

Announcer: Don, tell us about your pitching style. Henry Aaron calls you a "mean" pitcher, and Willie Mays says your fastball, which has been clocked at 95.3 miles per hour, is especially hard to hit because you come in with it sidearm, like the Cincinnati Reds' great Ewell Blackwell used to do. With your whiplash delivery and your arms and legs flailing, you look like a man fighting his way out of a plastic bag. What's more, some of the players around the National League claim you're a "headhunter" because you've led the league in hit batsmen five times. And the other night when you blanked the San Francisco Giants 3-0, their manager, Herman Franks, insisted you were throwing a "Vaseline ball"--doctoring it with grease to make it jump around. True?

Drysdale: Let's take one thing at a time. First off, I throw sidearm because I started out as an infielder. My dad, who was once a minor-league hurler (as you guys call us), wouldn't let me pitch; he was afraid I'd get "Little League elbow." Now about that headhunting: absolutely not. If I deliberately tried to hit batters, I could knock down nine out of ten, like any other good pitcher. As for Vaseline, I never owned a jar of it. That's greasy kid stuff.

Announcer: I'm not sure opposing batters would be satisfied with all those answers, Don. But let's move on. When you first came up to the major leagues, you had a reputation for being temperamental and for, well, sounding off. Buzzie Bavasi, the Dodgers' general manager, even gave you a plaque that was inscribed "To be seen--stand up. To be heard--speak up. To be appreciated--shut up." Now that you're 31 and there's a grey hair in your right sideburn and you're making $100,000 a year and you own four race horses, I guess you've probably calmed down quite a lot.

Drysdale: Oh, sure. Of course, my wife Ginger deserves a lot of credit; she was a Rose Bowl princess before I married her, and I don't know how she manages to take such good care of me and Kelly Jean and our house in Hidden Hills and still find time to do her Halo and Lifebuoy commercials.

Announcer: Now correct me if I'm wrong, Don. You never even pitched until you were a senior at Van Nuys High School, but you were only 19 when you came up to the Dodgers. Obviously you were a natural, but is there anything that helped you develop so quickly?

Drysdale: Yes. My mother was a heck of a catcher. She helped me with my control, and she taught me to keep my fingers out of my mouth.

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