American Hall of Fame baseball pitcher for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers, famous for a 14-season record of 209 wins against 106 losses with 2,486 strikeouts. With Drysdale’s help, the Dodgers became the most-feared team in baseball in the late 50s and early ’60s. He was inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame on 8/12/1984 and ranks among the top ten in every Dodgers pitching category. At 6’6″ and 216 pounds, he played his best season in 1962, , leading the National League with a 25-9 record, 41 games started, 314-1/3 innings pitched, and 232 strikeouts. He won the National League Cy Young Award. He led the National League in innings pitched from 1962-1965, and from 1959 to 1962, led the National League in strikeouts three times.
In the spring of 1966, Drysdale shocked the baseball world when he and Sandy Koufax held out for more money. It worked; he was awarded an additional $110,000, a large sum then for a player.
He retired from baseball on 8/11/1969, and became a sportscaster with ABC.
On 9/27/1958, he married Ann Meyers, an All-American basketball player at UCLA and a broadcaster for NCAA women’s basketball games. They have one daughter and one son, who was born on Drysdale’s 51st birthday.
A gregarious man with a brilliant smile and resonant voice, Drysdale was described as an “overpowering workhorse” and a “Hall of Farmer off the field.”
At age 56, he was found dead shortly before he was scheduled to announce a Dodgers game on 7/03/1993. He was found to have suffered a fatal heart attack in his hotel room in Montreal.
Link to Wikipedia biography