Remembering Those Who Played Life’s Last Inning in 2021 – Part 2

 In the last National League season of the 1950’s, the 1959 pennant winner had to be determined by a best of two out of three playoff between the Milwaukee Braves and the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Braves had won the pennant the previous two years and were the 1957 World Series champions. The Dodgers, in the franchise’s second season in Los Angeles, had won four National League pennants in the 1950s while in Brooklyn and were the 1955 World Series champions.

In my previous blog post I discussed the players on the 1959 Braves who played life’s last inning in 2021:  right fielder Henry Aaron, catcher Del Crandell, and pitcher Juan Pizzaro. Here are the three players with the Dodgers that season who died in 2021.

Don Demeter – November 29, 2021

Born June 25, 1935, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Demeter had his Major League Baseball debut on September 18, 1956, with the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field. Following a season and a half in the minors, he played forty-eight games in 1958 after the franchise had moved to Los Angeles. In 1959, Demeter became the team’s starting center fielder hitting .256 with eighteen home runs (third highest on the team) and 70 RBI. Deciding to go with a group of younger outfield prospects (Tommy Davis, Ron Fairly, Frank Howard, and Willie Davis), the Dodgers traded Demeter to the Philadelphia Phillies in 1961. He hit seventy-one home runs in three seasons for the Phillies (1961 – 1963). However, Demeter joined the Detroit Tigers in 1964 as part of the trade that brought Hall of Fame (1996) pitcher Jim Bunning to the Phillies. After three seasons in the American League, Demeter retired and became a church pastor.

Solomon “Solly” Drake – August 18, 2021

Born October 23, 1930, in Little Rock, Arkansas, Drake came to the Dodgers at the beginning of the 1958 season. A severely dislocated ankle in the spring of 1955 hampered the speedy switch-hitting centerfielder’s time with the Chicago Cubs. In his 1956 rookie season, Drake played sixty-five games and hit .256. After hitting .300 for the Dodgers’ top minor league team in 1958, he began the 1959 season with the parent team in Los Angeles. But in June the Philadelphia Phillies purchased Drake’s contract and he played in sixty-seven games the rest of the season, his last in Major League baseball. Drake retired from professional baseball in 1962 and like his 1959 teammate with the Dodgers, Don Demeter, he later became a church pastor.

Stan Williams – February 20, 2021

Born September 14, 1936, in Enfield, New Hampshire, Stan Williams continued his 1958 rookie season role as a spot starting pitcher for the Dodgers in 1959. The 23 years old 6’5”, 230 pounds righthanded hurler finished 5 – 5 in 15 starts. Beginning in 1960, Williams had three consecutive seasons with double digit wins as the Dodgers had one of best starting pitching rotations in the National League which included Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. Traded to the New York Yankees after the 1962 season, Williams never had the same success spending the remaining years of his career in the American League before retiring in 1971.

Played at County Stadium in Milwaukee on September 28, the Los Angeles Dodgers won the first game of the 1959 National League 3-2. Don Demeter had one hit in four At Bats for the Dodgers.  Henry Aaron received two walks and Del Crandell had two hits for the Braves in a losing cause. 

The two teams played the next day at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the home field for the Dodgers until the final construction of Dodger Stadium in 1962. After trailing 5 – 2, the Dodgers scored three runs in the ninth inning to tie and then one in the twelfth to win 6 -5. Stan Williams gave up no hits or runs to the Braves the final three innings to be the winning pitcher.

It would be the Dodgers fifth National League pennant of the 1950s and the last as players for former Brooklyn Dodgers Gil Hodges, Duke Snider, Don Zimmer, Clem Labine, Carl Erskine, Roger Craig, Sandy Amoros, and Carl Furillo who drove in the second playoff game’s winning run. It would be the first of twelve pennants the franchise would win after moving to Los Angeles.

By 1959, the love affair between Milwaukee baseball fans and the Braves had begun to crumble. The team had led the National League in attendance since 1953, its first year in Milwaukee. But in 1959 fan attendance dropped below two million for the second straight year. The decline continued in 1960 although the Braves finished in second place behind the Pittsburgh Pirates. From 1961 – 1965, the team never finished higher than fourth place and averaged 750,000 a year in game attendance. After the 1965 season, the franchise moved to Atlanta with Henry Aaron and Ed Matthews the only holdovers from the Braves team that lost to the Dodgers in the 1959 National League playoff.