“We’ve lost …,” I started a sentence I couldn’t finish and Don hung up the phone without saying goodbye.
I don’t like to cry, but I cried that day. I felt hollow, like a failure. I also felt guilty. Had I done something wrong for our babies not to make it? Was it because I hadn’t told anyone about the pregnancy? Don held me in his arms and tried to console me. It was hard for him too, but even harder for Mom.
When I finally told her, I had to explain everything; why I hadn’t shared the news with anyone but Don, that I’d been carrying twins, and that now they were gone.
“I suspected as much,” she said. “You can’t hide that kind of thing, not from your own mother. But twins. Oh my.”
I imagine it brought up so many unpleasant feelings inside her. Her own mother had died after giving birth to twin girls when my mother was only six. It also made her think of my sister, Kelly. My pain was so minor compared to what Mom had been through. By the time Kelly died, Mom had the chance to wash her face, kiss her cheeks, tuck her into bed and soothe her fears and hurt feelings a thousand times in a thousand different ways. My loss paled by comparison, but I could relate to that very horrible pain she had endured.
“It simply wasn’t…”
“…meant to be,” I said finishing her sentence, knowing somewhere deep, deep down that she was right. That God must have had His reasons. “I know.”
I realized I still had to catch the flight to Carolina. It was too late for ESPN to find anyone else. That was so difficult though—the flight out, doing the game, coming back, waiting for my hospital appointment once I got home, and the whole time carrying a different kind of secret.
After the D&C was performed, Don and I decided to accept the fact that there would be no more children. He was fifty-five, I was thirty-six, and we had two beautiful, healthy sons. There was no need to ask for anything more. But once again, just when I thought I had everything planned, life let me know it had a mind of its own. One day when we were out on the golf course in Rancho Mirage, I told Don that I didn’t feel quite right. I thought maybe something had gone wrong with the D&C. This time we went to the doctor’s office together.
“You’re expecting,” he told us.
“How’d that happen?” Don asked.
“Well, don’t look at me,” I said.
Certainly, we were both surprised and overjoyed, but while I was more careful with this pregnancy by visiting the doctor more often, I still played basketball, tennis, golf. And I still ran.
“Maybe we should give her some crumbs or some candy to drop along the way in case she drops the baby. Then at least we’ll know where to find them.” Ueckie was always good for a joke. He had come by to visit us at home in Rancho Mirage one morning in early February,’93. I was nearly eight months pregnant with our third child and about to head out for a jog after making breakfast for the boys. That’s when the phone rang. Don answered. It was The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
“You’re in,” Donnie told me, giving me a big hug. I didn’t scream like I had after the call from Sam Nassi. I’d been passed over several times before, so I knew not to get excited. Papa always used to say that you can’t get too low if you don’t get too high. Love and Balance were his two favorite words. I remembered that now. Inside, though, I was beaming.
I’d already been inducted into the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame and the UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame, but this was Hoop Heaven, where the immortals of the game were enshrined! There was nothing in the world more prestigious for a basketball player. Luckily, the enshrinement ceremony wouldn’t take place for a couple of months yet. I hoped our third child would come when it was due. The first had been late and the second one early. They say three’s a charm. I was counting on it.
On March 10, 1993, at the Desert Hospital in Palm Springs, the nurses outside my room seemed more than just a little excited over my husband’s imminent arrival. They didn’t realize I could hear them. “Don Drysdale just called. He said he’ll be here any minute.”
Donnie had taken me to the hospital hours earlier. We knew months ago that if the baby wasn’t born by March 10, we’d have to induce because I had to fly into Nashville to broadcast the first round of the Men’s NCAA tournament for CBS on March 17.
They started the I.V. drip when we first got there, but nothing much seemed to be happening, so Don decided to run over to Jensens’ Market to grocery shop. In the meantime, thanks to the pitocin I.V., my contractions came on suddenly, fast and much stronger than with my first two deliveries. However, there was no way this baby was going to be born without Don there. He’d been at one birth and missed another. We’d planned for this birth, and he wasn’t missing it. Everything was on hold—including my pushing—until we could find him. Donnie had just called the nurses’ station for an update and was told to hustle on back. The nurses were in a dither as the news spread about Don’s arrival. I may have been the one about to give birth, but he was the one they were waiting for.
I suppose it couldn’t be helped. Everyone was familiar with Don’s career, both as a baseball player and a broadcaster. I’m fairly sure these ladies neither knew nor cared much about what his wife had accomplished. It was OK, I was used to it. I’d always said it was a man’s world. At least now another female had come into it, to help balance things out.
Drew Ann Drysdale weighed in at 8.5 lbs. Like her brothers, she was born with a healthy set of lungs. Unlike her brothers she was also born with a thick tuft of jet black hair.
“Whose kid is this?” Donnie blurted out. “The boys weren’t dark.”
“Well yours of course!” I shot back. He liked to tease no matter where we were, even in a hospital room after one of us had just pushed a new life into the world after waiting for the other to get back.
We knew Drew would be baptized into the Catholic Church, just as her two brothers had been. Don wasn’t Catholic, but he wanted the children to have a strong religious foundation. He also wanted Mom to like him. They’d had a tenuous relationship. After everything, she still worried about my marrying someone with such a strong will and who was much older. The fact that he had accepted the children being raised Catholic helped smooth things between them, to some degree. If the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, the way to a mother-in-law’s heart was often through her faith… that, and ample mother-in-law’s quarters.
By now we’d moved out of our place at the Club at Morningside and been living for the past two years in our dream home—an 8,000 square foot custom home off Clancy Lane in Rancho Mirage with plenty of room for guests and family. When Ueckie came to visit, Don watched him even more carefully now.
Since our home was near a golf course, I continued to play more and more golf. It was nice to see how my game had improved through my pregnancies. Speed and quickness were assets on the track and courts, but on the golf course they could be liabilities. My three pregnancies had demanded that I slow my swing down enough, so by now it had become habit.
The previous year I’d competed in the Celebrity Golf Association Championship up in Tahoe. No woman had ever been invited before, so the standard questions were, “What tees will she be playing off?” and “What kind of a handicap is she getting?”
At this point in my career everybody knew there was no way I was coming in last at anything, which meant that, just like with the Men’s Superstars, I was going to beat some of these guys. And none of them wanted to lose to a woman.
I knew I’d be playing in the next CGA Championship, so after returning from the NCAA tournament, I reconnected with Lou Rosanova to work on my game.
In between strengthening my golf swing and taking care of the kids, I continued to broadcast. My career was finally taking off. While ESPN, CBS, and other networks kept me busy, I was especially thrilled that TNT asked me to do a third encore appearance at the upcoming Goodwill Games. I also continued doing some basketball camps and speaking engagements. All the responsibilities made it interesting
playing the balancing act with being a full-time wife and mother. But mostly I held my breath waiting for June when I would officially become a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame.
Donnie was working for the Dodgers covering a Cubs series in Chicago when June finally came, but he flew out to meet me in Springfield. My family was already there, and I had brought DJ and Darren, who were five and three. Drew was still too young to care about anything like this, so she stayed with Don’s folks. When Don got to the hotel, we looked out the window and saw a crowd below begin to swell. By the time he and I were dressed and ready to go over for the enshrinement ceremony, I had never seen so many people trying to get Don’s autograph. It was a little bit scary. The NBA Commissioner, David Stern, recognized how crazy it was and how it might be impossible for us to get to the bus let alone walk to the auditorium, so he had his limo come around the back. Who knew there would be so many baseball fans in Springfield?
Julius Erving, who had long since become more like a brother than a friend, was also being inducted that year, along with Bill Walton, Calvin Murphy, Dan Issel, and Walt Belamy. It was the biggest class ever to be inducted. Protocol was such that each inductee needed a resident Hall of Famer to present him or her. Bill Walton and I had asked Coach Wooden, unwittingly causing quite a predicament for the man we both loved and admired. Papa wouldn’t choose. He told us that at eighty-three, he didn’t want to fly cross-country, but I think it was just his way of not hurting either one of our feelings.
I selected Pete Newell, another coach whom I admired very much. Known for his Big Man Camps, I first approached Coach Newell back in ’77 after Anna’s Banana’s had won our first of three AAU Championships and asked him to do a Tall Women’s Camp. The camps were mostly about footwork. Years later, while pregnant with Drew, Pete and Pete Jr. invited me to be a coach at USA Basketball. Pete gave a demonstration on how to set a pick, so I ran into him, barreling him down. Nobody outside family knew I was pregnant, so I chose that night at dinner to share the news.
“Imagine that,” Pete said, looking dazed. “I can’t remember ever working a pregnant woman so hard.”
The only other woman to be inducted that year was someone I hadn’t seen since 1986, Uljana Semjonova. The Russian Giantess who had been my rival on the courts was now my comrade, of sorts. She and I suddenly belonged to an exclusive club. Don had been inducted into Cooperstown nine years earlier, which meant he and I were now the first married couple to be enshrined in our respective sport’s Halls of Fame. For me, it was the crowning glory to an athletic career that had been a dream come true. And yet, now it feels like a lifetime ago.
After the basketball enshrinement, I flew to New York with Donnie for the Baseball Hall of Fame dinner at the Waldorf. It seemed this hotel kept popping up in my life. I’d stared out the door at its famous façade when I’d stayed across the way at a smaller hotel the first time I played USA ball. Now I was staying at the place as a wife and mother—who’d just been inducted into the Hall of Fame.
When we got back home, it was nice to relax after the whirlwind of activity, but Donnie and I only had a few days together before he had to go on the road again, this time to Montreal.
On Friday, July 2, I turned on the television before the Dodgers game so the boys and Drew could see Daddy on TV, something I did often, especially when the team was playing away and I knew he wouldn’t be home to tuck them in. Don would come on before Vinny, do the opening, and the kids would go up to the TV and kiss him, often asking why Daddy didn’t say hi to them.
I thought Don looked good, if a little tired, but I didn’t think much of it. He said he’d popped a blood-vessel in his eye from a fall at Dodger Stadium a few days before, and I figured maybe it was bothering him.
“How’d they do?” I asked him about nine ‘o clock that night. It was three hours later in Montreal. The Dodgers had played the Expos, and Donnie had just gotten into his room after riding up the elevator with Ross Porter.
“We came in first.” Donnie would usually put it that way. They came in first or second, but they never won or lost. “Have you gotten anything for Kelly, yet?” The following day was his daughter’s birthday, and the boys and I were going to Kelly’s place for her party.
“I ordered the flowers. I’ll run out tomorrow and pick something out.”
“Make sure it’s something special. Wish I could be there with her and you and the kids.”
I couldn’t have agreed more. “We wish you could, too, but we’ll see you when you get back.”
“I love you,” he said. The sound of his voice still made my heart sing. “Goodnight, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite. And if they do, get your shoe…”
“And smack them with your crackers and stew…” I finished the limerick with him, told him that I loved him, and hung up.
7:30 the next morning, I called knowing it would be 10:30 in Montreal, but there was no answer. I figured he was off having coffee with an old acquaintance or working a business deal. I put the kids in the car and headed up to Manhattan Beach. It was the 4th of July weekend, so we knew the place would be packed. I planned to drop Drew with Kelly so they could have time together, while I took the boys to the beach. When I got to her place, I asked if she’d heard from her dad. She said no. Now I knew something was wrong. He would have called to wish her happy birthday. Before heading out, I tried phoning Don again. Still no answer. What’s going on? It was noon already. By now we’d normally have spoken at least two or three times. I didn’t know whether to be mad or worried. I called Mom and told her that if Don called looking for me, she should tell him to ring Kelly’s.
It was a perfect beach day; yet as beautiful as it was I couldn’t help but feel uneasy. By the afternoon, the boys were covered with sand. When we got to Kelly’s I saw her standing there holding the baby.
“Has your dad called yet?” I asked, taking Drew into my arms.
“No.”
The game was about to start, so I couldn’t try calling him now. I headed to the TV to turn on his broadcast so the kids could watch Daddy and Vinny, but with party guests arriving, Kelly didn’t want the TV on.
At about 4:20 p.m. I received a call from my sister, Cathy. “They’ve been looking for you Annie. You need to call Mom.” When I called she gave me Peter O’Malley’s phone number and told me to call him immediately. Why’s Peter calling me?
“Don’s had a heart attack,” Peter said.
My heart started racing and an acrid taste lined my tongue. My first thought was that I needed to make sure he had the best doctor. “What hospital?” I asked, trying not to sound as frantic as I felt. “I have to get there, so I can take care of him…”
“No, Annie. He didn’t make it.”
“What? No! I need to be with him,” I insisted. I don’t know what I was thinking. My mind alternately went blank, and then raced with thoughts of plane flights into Montreal. Every cell in my body ached to be near him. If I could just be with him, he would make everything okay.
“I’m sorry, Annie. I didn’t want to have to tell you like this. We’ve been trying to reach you all day. I didn’t want you to hear it on TV…” Peter went on to explain something about other news channels already broadcasting his death and Vinny’s announcement that night—how they’d tried to postpone it. Peter’s voice was just a jumble of sounds now, and I was off somewhere too far away to decipher any of them.
How can I tell Kelly? And Don’s parents? How will they survive it? Kelly could see that something terrible had happened, so her friend, Alex, took the phone and talked to Peter, then broke the news to Kelly.
The children were in the back room playing, so I turned on the T.V., and there was Vinny. “Friends, we’ve known each other a long time,” he said slowly, “and I’ve had to make a lot of announcements, some more painful than others. But never have I ever been asked to make an announcement that hurts me as much as this one. And I say it to you as best I can with a broken heart.”
As Vinny co
ntinued, I prayed that Scotty and Verna weren’t watching, but of course, I knew they were.
20
Fly Me to the Moon
“Grief is the price we pay for Love.”
~ Queen Elizabeth, II
I took the boys into Kelly’s bedroom, sat them on the bed and talked to them. It was one of the most difficult things I have ever done in my life. I knew I couldn’t break down because it would only scare them. I told them as gently as I could that Daddy was in Heaven. D.J. understood more than Darren did, but Darren could still sense that something terrible had happened. When both the boys started to cry I pulled them in close to me and held them tight as tears streamed down my face.
Meanwhile, the details came flooding in. The Dodgers had sent Billy Delury, the longtime Dodgers secretary, to look for Don when he didn’t show up for the game. He had died in his room of a massive heart attack.
Donnie died on July 3, 1993, on the 34th birthday of his oldest child, Kelly. His number was 53; the two boys were five and three. The baby was three months.
My mind sped ahead in a fogged haze. In a few weeks D.J. would be turning six. The previous cakes all had Don’s name on them as well as D.J.s because they shared the same birthday. I couldn’t suddenly leave Don’s name off this cake. Before I could worry about any of that though, I had to make it through the funeral.
I called Ueckie and asked him to speak, but I told him I wanted him to keep it upbeat. I didn’t want it to be any more difficult for Don’s parents, our children, and everyone else who loved him than it already was. There had been no warning, nothing to prepare any of us. Donnie had needed an angioplasty a few years earlier, and two of his uncles had died from a heart attack in their forties. But Donnie always seemed so invincible. He was this strong, hulking man who was in great shape and so full of life. And he was so happy. He loved me and his children. Everything seemed so perfect. Even when I couldn’t reach him that day, I wouldn’t allow myself to think that something terrible had happened. And I think part of me still refused to believe it.
You Let Some Girl Beat You? Page 19