Don Drysdale Marquee Hall of Fame 1984

He stood six feet five, threw from the side, and made no secret of pitching at hitters who crowded the plate. He won 209 games with 2,486 strikeouts, 49 shutouts and 167 complete games, and he took the 1962 Cy Young Award, going 25-9, when a single award still covered both leagues.

He and Sandy Koufax refused to sign for 1966 unless the Dodgers negotiated with the two of them together. The holdout ran into spring training and ended in separate contracts, but it had shown players what bargaining as a bloc could do. Los Angeles won the World Series three times while he was there, in 1959, 1963 and 1965.

In 1968 he threw eight shutouts and ran off a scoreless streak that stood as the record until Orel Hershiser broke it twenty years later. A torn shoulder ended him the next August, at thirty-three. He was broadcasting Dodgers games in 1993 when he died in a Montreal hotel room, at fifty-six.