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Umpire, Batter Debate 1968 Drysdale Pitch

By TONY FAVIA, UPI Sports Writer

NEW YORK -- Don Drysdale's recent failure to get voted into the Hallof Fame recalled his greatest pitching feat: six straight shutouts and 58 2-3 scoreless innings in the 1968 season. Butfor some, that memory will always be slightly tarnished because of an incident in the fifth game of the streak.

The date was May 31, 1968, and an excited evening crowd of 46,067 had turned out at Dodger Stadium to watch Drysdale try to extend his incredible streak against the Dodgers' arch-rivals,the San Francisco Giants. Besides the tension of Drysdale'sfeat, the teams involved were battling for first place in the National League.

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The huge right-hander who had pitched four previous shutouts baffled the Giants for eight innings while Los Angeles assumed a 3-0 lead, running his streak to 44 innings. That left Drysdale 12 innings short of Walter Johnson's all-time record, set in 1913. But in the next inning,Drysdale ran into trouble.

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He issued his first walk of thegame to Willie McCovey leading off the ninth inning. Jim Ray Hart followed with a single and Dave Marshall walked, loading the bases with nobody out. Drysdale's scoreless streak had reached its most perilous moment, and Giants catcher DickDietz strode to the plate.

The count went to 2-and-2 on Dietz. Drysdale's next delivery, a slider, sailed inside and struck Dietz on the arm. The crowd moaned, thinking the streak had come to an end. But suddenly, home-plate umpire Harry Wendelstedt was out in front of the plate waving his arms.

Dietz, now residing in Greenville, S.C., recalled the moment.

'I took two steps toward first base and Harry said, 'No.' I said, 'No what?' He said, 'No, you didn't try to get outof the way of that pitch,'' Dietz said.

Indeed, Baseball Rule 6.08b(2) states, in part: 'The batter ... is entitled to first base ... when he is touched by a pitched ball ... unless the batter makes no attempt to avoid being touched by the ball.'

That was Wendelstedt's decision, and after a half-hour of arguments from Dietz and Giants Manager Herman Franks, the game resumed with a 3-and-2 count on Dietz. He fouled off two pitches, then flied out to shallow left, not long enough to score a run.

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Pinch hitter Ty Cline followed with a grounder to first baseman Wes Parker, who threw home fora forceout. And when Jack Hiatt ended the game with a pop to Parker, Drysdale's streak was intact.

Drysdale went on tobreak Johnson's record in a season that was dubbed 'The Year of the Pitcher,' as Bob Gibson posted a 1.12 ERA and Denny McLain won 31 games. Gibson was recently elected to the Hall of Fame on his first attempt, but Drysdale missed for the second time.

Drysdale's was one of the most amazing accomplishments in baseball history, but the questions about the Dietz call will no doubt live as long as the record. For Dietz, who played 15 years, never saw that call made before or since, and Wendelstedt never saw fit to call it at any othertime.

To this day, the two men still disagree.

'I saw itimmediately,' remembered Wendelstedt from Ormond Beach, Fla., where he directs an umpires school. 'That's not the type of thing you can miss. He started to back away and then stuck his elbow into the ball.

'I immediately said, 'No, no,no, you tried to get hit with it.' This was just so evidentthat I acted instinctively. It was my judgment that the mantried to get hit with the pitch.'

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Dietz accused Drysdale of throwing a spitball and said he was crowding the plate because he didn't want to get fooled by one of the trick pitches.

'I was protecting the plate,' he said. 'Don threw one of those slippery pitches -- he threw a spitball -- so I was hanging over the plate, protecting myself. His spitball was a super out pitch.

'I think he hit me with a slider, inside and hard, and it hit me above the elbow.'

He denied that he stood in the way of the ball on purpose.

'I'm not going to stand there and let Don Drysdale hit me. You'd have to be crazy to do that. My name's not Ron Hunt,' Dietz said, referring to baseball's all-time leader in getting hit by pitches.

'I think that's a weak argument,' Wendelstedt said. 'Dick's a pretty smart guy. He wanted to get a run in, and he was going to get that run in any way he could.'

Wendelstedt said that he never thought of Drysdale's streak.

'I couldn't care less about the man's record,' the umpire said. 'You do what you think is right. That's part of my job.

'In my opinion, there was a lot of bad blood between theDodgers and the Giants, and that magnified the incident. Itshouldn't take anything away from the man's (Drysdale's) performance.

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'What some people tend to forget is that after all the arguing was over, he still had bases loaded and no one out, and he managed to get out of the jam. I think that was a great performance.'

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