<p>Former All-Star catcher Dick Dietz, involved with Don Drysdale in one of baseball's most disputed plays in the 1960s, has died. He was 63.</p><p>Dietz died Tuesday from a heart attack, the Hunter Funeral Home said. He will be buried in Greenville, S.C.</p><p>Dietz hit .261 with 66 home runs and 301 RBIs from 1966-73, mostly with the San Francisco Giants. He finished his career with Los Angeles and Atlanta.</p><p>His best season was 1970, when he hit .300 with 36 doubles, 22 home runs and 107 RBIs, along with 109 walks. He was an All-Star that season, and his leadoff homer in the ninth inning against Catfish Hunter started a three-run rally that tied it _ the NL won in the 12th when Pete Rose ran over catcher Ray Fosse to score the winning run.</p><p>Dietz probably was better known, however, for what happened at Dodger Stadium on May 31, 1968.</p><p>Drysdale was in the midst of setting a major league record of 58 2-3 scoreless innings and bidding for his fifth straight shutout when the Giants loaded the bases with no outs in the ninth inning.</p><p>Dietz came up, and was hit in the elbow by a 2-2 pitch from the future Los Angeles Hall of Famer. But before Dietz could take his base and force home a run that would break Drysdale's streak, plate umpire Harry Wendelstedt ruled that Dietz did not try to get out of the way of the ball.</p><p>"He stood there like a post," former Giants teammate Ron Hunt recalled Wednesday. "It was a high slider, and he didn't make an attempt."</p><p>The Giants loudly argued the call, but Dietz returned to the plate with a full count and hit a shallow fly ball that was not deep enough to score a run. Drysdale retired the next two batters to finish off the shutout and extend his string to 45 scoreless innings.</p><p>Hunt, who once held the hit-by-pitch record, remembered that Wendelstedt made his call right away. That didn't stop the Giants from complaining.</p><p>"We'd seen a lot of those things where it was or wasn't called, when it wasn't such a big deal," Hunt said.</p>
