Don Drysdale: Up and In; The Life of a Dodgers Legend

Retired sports columnist and U.S. Basketball Writers Hall of Famer Whicker mines a deep trove of primary sources in this breezy biography of the life and times of Don Drysdale, Hall of Famer and Los Angeles Dodger pitcher from 1958 to 1969. This book talks about how Drysdale joined the Brooklyn Dodgers just before they shocked the baseball world and moved across the country to Los Angeles in 1958. Alongside teammate Sandy Koufax, Drysdale led the Los Angeles Dodgers to a chain of World Series championships in the 1960s, at a time when baseball’s popularity in the U.S. was at its peak. A born-and-raised Southern Californian with an aggressive pitching style and larger-than-life personality, Drysdale hung out with friends such as Frank Sinatra and Howard Cosell, made numerous television guest appearances, raised horses, and became a broadcaster before his death at age 56 in 1993. The book does a good job navigating Drysdale’s remarkable life but never gets below the surface, and readers might find that the narrative tends to wander.