When Don Demeter was set up in center field for the aging Los Angeles Dodgers of 1959, mainly supplanting the future Hall of Famer Duke Snider, he was promoted as a star of the future.Demeter, a 23-year-old rookie with a powerful right-handed swing from his 6-foot-4-inch frame, struck 3 crowning achievement in an April game at the Los Angeles Coliseum, the last one providing the Dodgers an 11th-inning triumph over the San Francisco Giants. He connected for 18 crowning achievement and drove in 70 runs in assisting to propel the Dodgers to a World Series championship, a six-game victory over the Chicago White Sox, in their second season considering that leaving Brooklyn.” The winds of modification were definitely in the air,”Snider recalled in”The Duke of Flatbush”(1988 ), written with Bill Gilbert.”Don Demeter was being groomed to take my location.” But Demeter, who at 86 died of unknown causes on Monday at his house in Oklahoma City, never ever satisfied expectations as a Dodger. He broke a wrist in an accident with Dodgers shortstop Maury Wills in a July 1960 video game and was traded early in the 1961 season to the Phillies when he left to a sluggish start at the plate. Willie Davis, the future All-Star center fielder, had actually revealed promise as a player while seeing minimal action with Los Angeles the previous season and seemed prepared to step in as a regular. In addition, the Dodgers got the Phillies’hard-throwing relief pitcher Turk Farrell in the deal.Demeter did go on to a great career, his best seasons coming with Philadelphia in 1962 and’ 63, when he hit an overall of 51 home runs, had another three-homer video game and drove in 190 runs.Over 11 seasons Demeter hit 163 crowning achievement betting 5 groups. He played in 266 consecutive games without a mistake as an outfielder with the Phillies and the Detroit Tigers, a major league record at the time.(
He did commit mistakes when he played at third base and very first base. )Demeter’s outfield streak ended on a strange note with the Tigers in a July 1965 road game versus the Kansas City Athletics. “They had some pets that were trained to go out with bases in their mouths between innings,”he told an Oklahoma paper, The Shawnee News-Star, long later.”A line drive was hit to me, and they believed I caught it, so the infield team let the pet dogs loose on the field. I scooped the ball up and threw into second base to hold the runner, and the dog ran through our shortstop Penis McAuliffe’s legs. Cock looked down at the dog and missed out on the ball I tossed him, advancing the runner, and they offered me the error. “Donald Lee Demeter was born on June 25, 1935, in Oklahoma City, one four kids of Lewis Demeter, a painting specialist, and his spouse, Ailene.Don played the outfield on a state-championship high school group. A devout Baptist, he was offered an athletic scholarship by Oklahoma Baptist University but turned it down to sign with the Brooklyn Dodgers’organization in 1953 for an $800 benefit(the equivalent of about$ 8,300 today). Demeter advanced slowly through the Dodgers’vast farm system, and was lastly called
up by Brooklyn in September 1956 after hitting 41 crowning achievement for the Fort Worth Cats of the Texas League.Facing the St. Louis Cardinals at Ebbets Field as a pinch-hitter in his big league launching, Demeter started out on three called strikes tossed by their outstanding left-hander Vinegar Bend Mizell.”I was so enjoyed have a Brooklyn uniform on,”he told The News-Star.”I didn’t want to embarrass myself by swinging and missing out on the ball. I stayed up most of that night believing that if I ever get to strike again, I’m going to swing. “The next day, pinch-hitting once more, Demeter struck a home run off the Cards’lefty Don Liddle.” I thought I was in heaven already,”he recalled.Demeter’s track record as a minors slugger was duly kept in mind in the clubhouse.”When I can be found in at the end of the game,”he told the Oklahoma
paper in 1999,” a few of the press reporters there had composed on the chalkboard,’Demeter– 59 behind Ruth.'”But he wasn’t considered prepared to earn a long lasting promo to the Dodgers. Demeter was back in the minors in 1957 and split his 1958 season in between the minors and the Dodgers.Snider was still an efficient player during the Dodgers’1959 championship season, but he was hindered by a knee injury and played part of the time in best field, offering Demeter a chance to stroll the Coliseum’s spacious center field.Following his time with the Dodgers, the Phillies and the Tigers, Demeter
played for the Boston Red Sox and Cleveland Indians. He retired after the 1967 season with a. 265 profession batting average.Demeter, whose death was verified by a grand son, Cole Cleveland, is survived by his
wife, Betty(Madole)Demeter; a kid, Russ; a daughter, Jill Cleveland; his siblings Betty Ragan and Delores Mohr; and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren. His boy Todd, who played in
the minors, died of cancer in 1996. After leaving baseball, Demeter owned a pool setup service. In his later years he was a creator and long time pastor of the Grace Neighborhood Baptist Church in Oklahoma City.In September 2014, the Dodgers’ longtime manager Tommy Lasorda, having actually arrived in Oklahoma City to mark the Dodgers’ becoming part owners of its RedHawks of the Pacific Coast League, was priced quote by The Oklahoman as calling Demeter “a Dodger through and through.
“”He’s a preacher now, someone who conserves individuals’s souls, “Lasorda added. “What I try to do is save people from rooting for other groups.”
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/sports/baseball/don-demeter-dead.html