Posted on 10/03/2011 4:59:47 PM PDT by rhema
For five memorable seasons, Sandy Koufax dominated baseball as no other major league pitcher ever had before. From 1962 to 1966, Koufax led the National League in earned run average, the only pitcher ever to do that. At the same time, he compiled a record of 111-34, a winning percentage of .766, that has never been equaled. Koufax led the National League in wins, ERA, and strikeouts for three consecutive seasons. He pitched 4 no-hitters, including a perfect game. In 1963, he threw 11 shutouts, more than any other pitcher has since in one season. In 1965, he went 26-8 and set a major league record by striking out 382 batters in one season. In 1972, he was elected to Baseball’s Hall of Fame, becoming Cooperstown’s youngest member at the age of 36. He remains today only the second Jewish player to enter the pantheon.
Born in Brooklyn on December 30, 1935, Koufax attended Lafayette High School in Bensonhurst, where one of his friends was the television talk show host Larry King. At Lafayette, Koufax played on the basketball team, earning a reputation as one of the best players in Brooklyn. He didn’t play on the baseball team until his senior year, and then usually as a first baseman who would sometimes pitch in relief of another friend, Fred Wilpon, Lafayette’s pitching star and later the co-owner of the New York Mets.
Koufax won a basketball scholarship to the University of Cincin-nati, where he planned to study architecture. In the spring of his freshman year, he became the overnight pitching sensation of the university’s baseball team, striking out 34 batters in his first two games and gaining the attention of sportswriters and baseball scouts throughout the country. Before long, close to a dozen major league scouts, including the Brooklyn Dodgers’ Al Campanis, converged on Cincinnati and offered him contracts. Accepting the Dodgers’ offer of $20,000—a salary of $6,000 and a signing bonus of $14,000—Koufax left college after his freshman year for Ebbets Field.
The Dodgers owners, as Koufax biographer Jane Leavy has noted, were overjoyed, regarding “the signing of a Jewish ballplayer the way others regarded the coming of the messiah. The Dodgers were so desperate for a Jewish presence, given the demographics of Brooklyn … Koufax was a marketing godsend.” The team’s owner, Walter O’Malley, proclaimed him “the great Jewish hope” of the franchise, telling a reporter: “We hope he’ll be as great as Hank Greenberg.”
At first, Koufax failed to meet such exalted expectations. His first few seasons were mediocre at best, a disappointment to management and fans alike. Koufax pitched in only 12 games in 1955, winning 2 and losing 2. In 1956, his second season with the Dodgers, Koufax won 2 games and lost 4. In 1957, his record was 5 and 4. Ironically, it was only after the Dodgers moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles that Koufax began his remarkable ascent to superstardom. In August 1959, pitching against the San Francisco Giants, who had also recently moved west from New York, Koufax tied the major league record of 18 strikeouts set by Bob Feller in 1938.
With the 1962 season, his metamorphosis complete, Koufax began to make baseball history, pitching the first of his 4 no-hitters, striking out 18 batters in a game for the second time in his career, and leading the major leagues with an ERA of 2.54. In 1963, the season in which he pitched his second no-hitter, his statistics were monumental. He led the National League with 25 games won, a 1.88 ERA, and 306 strikeouts, winning the pitcher’s Triple Crown. He was the unanimous winner of the Cy Young Award, as the National League’s best pitcher, and was voted the National League’s Most Valuable Player as well. In the 1963 World Series against the New York Yankees, during which he won two games, Koufax set a new World Series record by striking out 15 batters in one game, and was voted the World Series MVP.
For many baseball fans, Koufax’s meteoric rise symbolized the coming of age of baseball in the American West. A virtual unknown when the Dodgers moved to California in 1957, Koufax, by the time of his retirement in 1966, was a household name. He had become the greatest pitcher of his era, a baseball celebrity second only perhaps to Willie Mays.
In 1965, despite arthritis in his elbow, Koufax had what many consider the best season any pitcher ever had, leading the major leagues in victories, strikeouts, complete games, innings pitched, and ERA. Then on September 9, 1965, in a game against the Chicago Cubs, he pitched his fourth no-hitter and his first perfect game. Like Willie Mays’s over-the-shoulder catch during the 1954 World Series and Bobby Thomson’s home run “heard round the world” three years earlier, Koufax’s perfect game would become the moment for which he would be remembered.
And yet, Koufax’s contribution to baseball that season cannot be measured by statistics alone. Less than a month after the perfect game, Koufax achieved, as Jane Leavy put it, “another kind of perfection by refusing to pitch the opening game of the World Series because it fell on the holiest day of the Jewish year,” Yom Kippur. By refusing to pitch, “Koufax defined himself as a man of principle who placed faith above craft.” Like Hank Greenberg’s similar decision 31 years earlier, this became a defining moment for a new generation of American Jews, and a source of inspiration for Jewish baseball fans. Bruce Lustig, the senior rabbi at the Washington Hebrew Congregation in Washington, D.C., and a fan since childhood, has pointed to Koufax’s decision not to pitch “as a transforming event, providing the catalyst” for many Jews “to acknowledge and honor their religion.” Koufax’s action “both reinforced Jewish pride and enhanced the sense of belonging—a feat as prodigious as any he had accomplished on the baseball field.”
So, too, his successful joint salary holdout with his teammate Don Drysdale, in their 1966 preseason contract negotiations with the Dodgers, as several baseball historians have pointed out, was a “transforming event” that paved the way for Marvin Miller’s challenge to the reserve clause and the beginning of free agency. In hiring an attorney to bargain for them and in demanding contracts of more than $100,000 annually—a salary ceiling no player had ever exceeded—Koufax believed they were fighting for a basic principle: “That ballplayers aren’t slaves, that we have a right to negotiate.”
The Dodgers gave in to Koufax’s contract demands, and in 1966 he earned $135,000, the highest salary ever paid a baseball player. That was his last season, and he won 27 games, with a phenomenal 1.73 ERA, and received his third unanimous Cy Young Award, despite the fact that the chronic arthritic condition in his pitching arm that had afflicted him through much of his pitching career had worsened. At season’s end, in constant pain and warned by physicians that if he continued pitching he might lose the use of his left arm, Koufax shocked the baseball world with his announcement that he was retiring at the age of 30.
Today, 45 years after his retirement at the top of his career, Sandy Koufax should be remembered as the last of the greatest pitchers of baseball’s golden age. Now 75, Koufax should also be admired for his refusal to pitch on Yom Kippur and his role in winning the right of a baseball player to negotiate over salary—achievements off the field that have done much to shape his enduring legacy.
Claude Osteen was the third member of the Dodger rotation in the mid-sixties. Sutton was a rookie in Koufax’ last year (1966).
Game 6?
And now, for the rest of the story . . .I couldn't possibly improve on Jane Leavy's remarkable biography Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy.
You can forget that other fella. You can forget Waddell. The Jewish kid is the best of any of them.---Casey Stengel.
There's only two things Sandy can't do. He can't park and he can't hit.---Whitey Ford (alluding to the ticket on the windshield---it was parked on the sidewalk---when Sport awarded Koufax a Corvette as World Series MVP in 1963.)
I recall 8/26/65 when 20 year old Met Tug McGraw (1-2) was scheduled to go up against Koufax (21-5), who I believe was 18-0 lifetime against the Mets at the time. McGraw won. The boxscore of that game.
In 1950, only the following cities had Major League Baseball teams:
- Boston (Red Sox and Braves)
- New York (Yankees, Giants and Dodgers)
- Philadelphia (Phillies and A's)
- Washington (Senators)
- Pittsburgh (Pirates)
- Cleveland (Indians)
- Detroit (Tigers)
- Cincinnati (Reds)
- Chicago (Cubs and White Sox)
- St Louis (Cardinals and Browns)
I remember 1968. Brock, Flood, Shannon, Maxvill, McCarver, Maris, Cepada, Javier. Not only strong hitting and base running, but top fielding, too. And Briles, Washburn and Carlton along with Gibson as the ace and Hoerner to close. I think I’d win a pennant every year with that lineup.
Of course, we are only young for a short time. I saw Koufax once at Wrigley. It was embarrasing (as a Cubs fan). And amazing. Must have been 1966. Koufax was baseball old at 30. I wasn’t surprised to hear he quit after that year.
I’m in Dallas. Ian Kinsler is the Rangers’ second baseman. He is Jewish and is very popular. We call him the Jew bear or JB for short after the bad ass in Inglorious Bastards.
How about the BP story before one of the ‘78, (or maybe ‘77), Bombers/Dodgers Series games? As it was told, Sandy threw some BP and evidently got into a competitive thing with Garvey/Lopes/Penquin/Smith/Baker and the guys and mowed ‘em down badly. Lasorda had to end the session as he felt it was gonna demoralize his guys! It was about 12 years or so after Sandy had hung ‘em up! Anyone know/heard anything else about this story? Sandy Koufax was the best hurler I ever saw pitch.
I probably would have played against Don Sutton in high school except I quit after the second game. The coach who I liked and still like, had me substituting behind the guy who started the previous year in Right Field. This kid coud catch a fly ball and throw it in slowly. He also moved slowly in the outfield. In brief he was awful and could not hit either.
On the other hand he was the coaches son’s girlfriend’s
brother. In my opinion that was the the only reason he was playing plus he was the son of a prominent businessman.
The first game of the season we played Crestview. We were winning easily so they put me in for a couple of innings. During that time I was at bat twice and hit a home run and double driving in 3 more runs. I also made one of the best plays in the outfield I have ever made.
A ball was hit way over my head. I started running full speed with my back to the ball. I was far enough that I had gotten up a good deal of speed (I held the record for the 100 yard dash). I glanced back twice and just as the ball got over my head I reached as high as my arm would go and speared it. I was totally doing this blind as I could not watch the ball and catch it too. Since I was moving in the same direction as the ball it just barely stuck in the glove. Several of my team mates said it was the greatest catch they had ever seen.
I was sure I would start the next day but instead the coach put the politically valuable plodder in to start and I didn’t even get into the game. The next day I quit and went out for track.
If I had stayed on the team there is not doubt I would have played against Sutton, or at least set on the bench while other played him.
That is just the way it is done in small towns with wealthy and powerful men’s sons playing. I did end my baseball career batting 1000 and with a home run 50% of my at bats.
Should’ve tried ‘Seven’, or ‘Soda’!
I hate to say it, but Dodger Stadium was by FAR the top pitcher park in baseball. Look @ Dean Chance in 1964.
Personally, I think the end of the Reserve Clause pretty much wrecked sports as it was known...and turned it into show-biz.
Also, from '62 - '66, the Dodger's offense was what once sports writer referred to as 'a pop-gun offense'. With a powerhouse offense behind him, Koufax could easily have had multiple 30-win seasons!
I grew up in LA area in precisely that time period. A trip up the freeway to the Coliseum was better than a trip to Disneyland. I was lucky to see Koufax, Drysdale, Gibson, Marichal, Musial, Mays and many other stars of the era. And all made extra special by the presence of Vin Scully as announcer. Even at the stadium, Dodger fans would bring the newly available protable radio to the games just to hear Scully's play by play.
Wow. Hadn’t heard that story. LOL, thanks for the memory tweak with Ron “The Penguin” Cey. Yeah, Koufax was the best I ever saw too.
So very true! Aside from Howard a few years and Tommy Davis, the Dodgers then were not loaded with full on offensive guns like the Giants or Braves or Cards or even the Pirates in those years. A Wills bunt single or an outfield single, stolen sack and another single and that was it a lot of times. Sandy and Don were ‘under it’ a LOT while they were on the mound. 30 a couple of times? Couldn’t agree more.
That is outstanding, those baseballs are quite valuable.
I can remember Saturday mornings when dads were out mowing their lawns with their transistor radios blaring the Dodgers game. The smell of freshly-cut grass on a sunny day and the sound of Vin Sculley’s voice always bring me right back in time to those days.
I saw Koufax pitch in the Coliseum. It was a night game. They announced at one point that he had just tied the National League record for strikeouts in a night game (16). I remember wondering as a kid why anyone would keep track of that kind of thing.
Some guy came out of the stands and went out to the mound and talked to Koufax for a minute, until the security guards dragged him away. I heard later that he had bet a friend $500 that he would do it.
I remember reading in the sports pages how Koufax would immediately put his elbow in ice after each game. He always played in pain. He was not only skilled, he was courageous. All the kids who followed baseball in L.A. looked up to him. He was a worthy role model.
Hey, I remember Podres pitching for, ironically enough, the Padres. It was 1969, their expansion season--and his last.
Wikipedia shows that it must have been the 1965 all-star game played at the old Met Stadium. Those names look familiar - Mays, Robinson, Hank Aaron. As I said, I wasn’t (or am) a huge fan, so some of those names seemed odd to me to be so “recent”. They seemed so huge and mythic even at the time. (Like Mays, Robinson, Koufax, etc.) I must be getting old! But it really was another era I think.
**************************************************
1965 All-Star Game
National League
P Don Drysdale Dodgers
P Sammy Ellis Reds
P Turk Farrell Astros
P Bob Gibson Cardinals
P Sandy Koufax Dodgers
P Jim Maloney Reds
P Juan Marichal Giants starter
P Bob Veale Pirates
Position players
Position Player Team Notes
C Johnny Edwards Reds
C Joe Torre Braves starter
1B Ernie Banks Cubs starter
1B Ed Kranepool Mets
2B Cookie Rojas Phillies
2B Pete Rose Reds starter
3B Richie Allen Phillies starter
3B Ron Santo Cubs
SS Leo Cárdenas Reds
SS Maury Wills Dodgers starter
OF Hank Aaron Braves starter
OF Johnny Callison Phillies
OF Roberto Clemente Pirates
OF Willie Mays Giants starter
OF Frank Robinson Reds
OF Willie Stargell Pirates starter
OF Billy Williams Cubs
Coaching staff
Position Manager Team
Manager Gene Mauch Phillies
Coach Bobby Bragan Braves
Coach Dick Sisler Reds
***************************************************
American League roster
The American League roster included 6 future Hall of Fame players and coaches.
Pitchers
Throws Pitcher Team Notes
P Eddie Fisher White Sox
P Mudcat Grant Twins
P Bob Lee Angels
P Sam McDowell Indians
P John O’Donoghue Athletics
P Milt Pappas Orioles starter
P Pete Richert Senators
P Mel Stottlemyre Yankees
Position players
Position Player Team Notes
C Earl Battey Twins starter
C Bill Freehan Tigers
C Elston Howard Yankees
1B Harmon Killebrew Twins starter
1B Joe Pepitone Yankees Replaced Skowron
1B Moose Skowron White Sox injured
2B Félix Mantilla Red Sox starter
2B Bobby Richardson Yankees
3B Max Alvis Indians
3B Brooks Robinson Orioles starter
SS Dick McAuliffe Tigers starter
SS Zoilo Versalles Twins
OF Rocky Colavito Indians starter
OF Vic Davalillo Indians starter
OF Jimmie Hall Twins
OF Willie Horton Tigers
OF Al Kaline Tigers
OF Mickey Mantle Yankees injured
OF Tony Oliva Twins Replaced Mantle
OF Carl Yastrzemski Red Sox
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