You Let Some Girl Beat You? (22 page)

“Well, I think I'm going to head back home just the same. You don't mind do you?” D.J. and I had spent the previous night at Kelly's, and I was planning to head out to La Habra to see my mom.

Instead, I returned to our home in Pasadena since I didn't feel well. I had our nanny, Valerie, a sweet Irish girl from a family of nine, watch D.J. while I went upstairs to lie down. That's when my water broke. I felt down between my legs and there was something there that didn't feel like the other pregnancy. I called Kelly and asked her to call her dad, then I drove to the hospital. I don't know how I made it there, but I slammed on the brakes, grabbed myself with both hands, and ran in. They put me in a room and tried to contact my doctor's partner. My obstetrician was on vacation…naturally.

“Somebody better get in here,” I shouted loud enough to wake the dead. While I'd been lying in the room, I'd felt a foot pop out, and now I was really scared. The nurse stuck her head in and, within a fraction of a second, her expression changed from annoyance to panic. Then the other foot popped out. Meanwhile Don had caught the first plane to L.A. Kelly, who was staying in touch with the hospital, convinced the airline to relay updates from her to her dad via the pilot.

When the doctor arrived, he performed an emergency episiotomy. I nearly jumped off the table, but there was no time for drugs to deaden the pain. The baby was coming fast and the cord was wrapped around its neck. I was alone and incredibly scared, but I had no idea the baby's supply of oxygen might be compromised. I prayed our baby would be okay. Like a bolt of lightning, I suddenly realized that a hair's breadth lay between giving life and losing it.

With a worried look that I'll never forget, the doctor instructed the nurse to push down on my stomach while I bore down with all my might at the same time. It was touch and go for a while, but thank God the little guy who'd been in such a hurry to get here had lungs strong enough to let us know everything was fine. It was the sweetest sound I'd ever heard. Kelly got a message through to the pilot that a healthy baby boy had been born, weighing 6.5 lbs, with all ten fingers and ten toes intact. Apparently the whole plane cheered.

When the nurse handed me my son, I was more relieved than anything else, relieved and grateful. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I held my beautiful little bundle. He was perfect. I wanted to name him John after John Wooden, John Havlicek, and John Wayne, but Donnie didn't want two boys named Don and John because the names rhymed, and he thought that would sound silly. A friend of his, Darren Johnson, had recently passed away after battling cancer. We both loved the name. It was a Gaelic word that meant both “great and strong.” Thus Darren John Drysdale was christened.

I had been playing basketball into my seventh month in the John Wooden Adult Camp while I'd been pregnant with Darren, just as I'd stayed active throughout my first pregnancy, but Darren never did turn. My doctor would put me on my side and try to maneuver the baby's head down. He suggested I spend the remaining months of my pregnancy being less active, but I didn't like anyone telling me I couldn't play basketball. I would swear Papa had been talking to my doctor because he'd say, “Annie, what are you doing out here?” when I was about to take a charge. My mentality was that the baby was well-protected inside of a miraculous creation capable of making life and baskets all at once.

The first several days after Darren's birth were difficult. Because he was jaundiced, he had to stay in the hospital an extra day. It was so hard to be away from my newborn that night. When he did come home, we needed to keep him under a special light to remove the extra bilirubin. The nurse would stop by and draw blood to check his levels. Here he was only a few days old and bleeding from all these needle pricks. That didn't sit well with Don.

Added to that, was a strange sensation that crept in from out of nowhere, until it filled the house like a plague. Don and my family couldn't understand my teeter-tottering emotions, and I couldn't explain them any better. One minute I was crying, the next laughing. Apparently God's miraculous creation had some post-partum kinks that no one had warned me about. Thank God for Valerie. She helped me so DJ wouldn't feel like he was being replaced. The two boys were only twenty-four months apart. At night I could bond with Darren and the daytime was dedicated to giving DJ the attention he needed. Somewhere in between I tried to rest.

Eventually the fog that enveloped me, and the surplus of iron that was making Darren's skin look so olive, dissipated. It had been a very difficult patch for a while, but we all got through it.

Don was a wonderful father. He was known throughout the world of sports as a man's man, and yet he knew how to change a diaper. As the boys got older, he would take Darren in the pool and teach him to swim, just as he had with D.J. He'd also take the boys out in the backyard to play catch and learn to hit a ball. Don was also such a fundamentally good person. He helped friends out when they were struggling financially, yet he never let anyone know about it. It was the same when he would quietly send money to charities. He was very much like his friend Frank Sinatra in that way.

And Don was a team player. Donnie was broadcasting the game with Vin Scully when Orel Hershiser was in the midst of pitching for the record, eventually breaking Don's 58 2/3 scoreless innings streak by one. I asked Donnie how he felt about the possibility of having his record broken. He would explain how he had been encouraging Orel after the games. Whenever Orel expressed misgivings to Don about the position he was in, Don would guide him, offering advice on how to shut-out the batters. “You can strike this guy out with a fast ball on the inside corner if you let him think you're throwing a slider.” In Donnie's mind, records were meant to be broken, so long as it was a fellow Dodger. Lesser men would have clung to the past, but not Don. He was good at moving on.

Even with the children, we both stayed busy traveling and broadcasting, but we worked during different seasons so there was always one of us home with the kids. When we were apart we would talk to each other six to eight times a day, just to hear each other's voices. Every phone conversation ended with, “I love you.” If it was at night we'd add, “Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite, and if they do, get your shoe, and smack them with your crackers and stew.” When we were together again, it always felt like we were on our honeymoon. Everything was perfect, and it only seemed to get better.

On February 3, 1990, in Pauley Pavilion, Denise Curry, Bill Walton, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and I watched as our jerseys were the first in the school's history to be retired. My family was there along with our coaches, Billie Moore and John Wooden, Donnie, and our two boys. My jersey, #15, had been framed and was now being handed to me as a photographer from
Sports Illustrated
clicked away. The picture to appear in the magazine featured Kareem, Bill Walton, and me on either side of Papa. The two players dwarfed the aging coach, whose shoulders were beginning to stoop a little. To us, however, he remained every bit the giant he'd been in college. But he would always be larger than life in spite of his enormous humility and increasing frailties.

It was such a special day for so many reasons. As a Meyers, we've all supported one another during occasions like these, but now I had my husband and my two sons with me, and it was the first time Don had ever been inside Pauley Pavilion. Growing up in Van Nuys and playing baseball with the Dodgers, he hadn't had many opportunities to catch a UCLA basketball game during Coach Wooden's championship winning era. Now he was here for me.

I felt proud and blessed.

“I am but waiting for you, for an interval. Somewhere. Very near. Just around the corner.”
~ Henry Scott Holland

That summer after broadcasting the '90 Goodwill Games, I returned to discover I was pregnant. I was just as excited about this pregnancy as I had been with the boys, but Donnie and I decided to keep it quiet during the first trimester, which wouldn't be too hard because I never started showing until after then anyway.

Don's parents adored D.J. and Darren, but Scotty and Verna had questioned their son's decision to have more children. “Aren't you a little old to be having babies?”

Don's demanding schedule broadcasting and traveling with the Dodgers concerned them, and they wanted to make sure he considered the toll of having more children, and whether he'd have the necessary time to devote to his children.

At about eleven weeks into the pregnancy, we were at our place in Pasadena when something felt off. Luckily, I was already scheduled to see the doctor. He turned on the ultrasound machine and together we watched the monitor transform sound waves into what looked like a Rorschach test. Every time he moved the gadget around my bulging tummy a new design appeared, but unlike the other two pregnancies, each picture was stagnant. I realized I'd put off going to the doctor's office longer than I probably should have, but having had two healthy babies, I knew the drill. In fact I considered myself almost a pro by that point. After all, my mom had had eleven babies and all were born healthy.

“Well Mrs. Drysdale, I have some good news and some bad news,” the doctor said. “The good news is you have twins. The bad news is you've lost them. I'm sorry.”

“I've lost them?” I repeated, unable to process what I'd heard, wanting proof that this wasn't some sort of weird dream. He was so casual. Maybe he was joking. This was the doctor who had delivered Darren, the hero who'd appeared at the zero hour to save the day. Wouldn't he at least want to touch my hand, show some sign of sympathy? Wasn't that part of the whole Hippocratic oath thing? Or maybe I was just too much in shock to recognize whatever bedside manner there was.

“Stop by the counter before you leave and the nurse will schedule a D&C.”

But how? Why? What happened?
I wanted to scream, but he was already gone. I put my clothes on, and then, half-dazed, asked if I could use the phone to call my husband. The line was busy. I tried his car phone, but it just rang. I called the house in Pasadena where Don was with my mom and the kids a few more times, but I still couldn't get through.

I propped-up my arms on the counter near the nurse's station so that my legs wouldn't give way beneath me. I was supposed to fly out to Carolina that evening to broadcast an NC State game for ESPN.
What am I supposed to do?
This feeling of helplessness was something I wasn't accustomed to. I wasn't like other girls when I was little. I hadn't dreamt of growing up to marry a prince and having babies and, therefore, had never considered that something might go terribly wrong with that scenario.

Even if I had, that dread of the worst happening would never occur to me because I'd long since trained myself not to give negative possibilities any room to grow. I'd always plucked them out before they could take root. But now the worst
had
happened. I found my keys and my bearings then made my way to the car and drove myself home, empty and alone, an internal kind of autopilot kicking in the whole way.

“Annie, are you okay,” Mom had come out to spend time with the boys who were four and two, but she had no idea about this pregnancy.

“Where's Don?”

I had to let him know what had happened before I could tell anyone else, even her. My mother had always been there for me through everything, she was my protector and my inspiration. I felt guilty about keeping such a huge secret. As much as I wanted to run crying to her now, explain everything and be comforted by her, I knew that I had to tell my husband first. Don was my emotional anchor. He would make everything okay. He was still strong enough to take a fastball to any part of his body and pretty much laugh it off. Donnie loved to laugh. I prayed his strength would make me strong. I opened the door to the office where he was talking on the phone. The moment he saw my face he knew something was wrong.

“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.