DON DEMETER (Ok Sports HOF Inductees)
Called up from the minor leagues for a brief look by the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1956, a young Don Demeter was sent in to pinch hit during a game with the St. Louis Cardinals at legendary Ebbets Field. “My first time at bat, Vinegar Bend Mizell struck me out,” Demeter recalled. “I was so petrified, I didn’t take a swing.” The next day, he was sent in to pinch hit against Don Liddle, and determined to get the bat off his shoulder, hit a home run with his first swing in the major leagues. “When I hit it, Stan Musial was playing first base and he said, ‘Nice going, kid.’ And I thought, ‘Wow.’”
When he came in to the locker room after the game, some reporters had written on the chalkboard: “Demeter – 59 behind Ruth”. It was only the beginning of an eleven-season career during which he posted a.265 batting average with 163 home runs and 564 RBI in 1109 games played. His best season came in 1962 with a .307 average and 29 home runs, 107 RBI, 85 runs, 169 hits, 24 doubles, and a .520 slugging percentage – all career highs.
In the 1959, his first full year in the majors, Demeter took over center field from an aging Duke Snider and hit 18 home runs, helping the Dodgers win the World Series. He hit more than 20 home runs each year from 1961-1964, set a Major League Baseball record with 266 consecutive errorless innings from September, 1964, through July, 1965, and twice hit three home runs in one game (1959 and 1961). According to Baseball Digest, he is the only player to field an apple. In one game, the fans booed him, and one threw an apple at him. He picked it up and took a bite out of it. The booing stopped.
Demeter played with the Brooklyn Dodgers (1956), Los Angeles Dodgers ( 1958-1961), Philadelphia Phillies (1961-1963), Detroit Tigers (1964-1966), Boston Red Sox (1966-1967), and the Cleveland Indians (1967).
It was in the early 1950s when Oklahoma City’s Capitol Hill Redskins dominated high school baseball and the Brooklyn Dodgers signed nine of 11 players who were given contracts during a three-year period. “They just kind of signed me because the other kids wanted me to sign. They did me a favor,” said Demeter. But of the 11, he was the only one to make it to the majors.
Retiring, Demeter returned to Oklahoma City in 1968 to raise a family and start a pool construction company. Always deeply religious and active in church affairs, he counts his faith as “the focus of my life”. As the associate pastor at Graceway Baptist Church, he teaches bible study, makes hospital calls, preaches at funerals and does whatever else he is called on to do. Tom Sturdivant, another Capitol Hill and New York Yankees star, at whose funeral Demeter officiated and who was baptized by Demeter several years earlier, once commented, “Don is in his perfect place, and he is excellent at it.”
