Sandy Koufax!

Today I continue with thoughts on the four men voted baseball’s greatest living players, Willie Mays, Sandy Koufax, Henry Aaron and Johnny Bench.

It is said that prayer helps and maybe it did as I prayed Sandy Koufax would pitch well each time he started from (1964-1966), a three season span in which he averaged 24 wins per season.

My favorite player on my then favorite team–the Dodgers– Sandy largely struggled in his first six seasons but was easily the best pitcher since Lefty Grove, who pitched 30 or so years before him, in his last six and certainly 5 seasons.

Then on what was such a sad day in my early life, he was forced to retire from baseball due to an arthritic elbow after the 1966 season.

From (1962-1966), Koufax compiled a (111-34) won/loss record. I do not have to look up nor research that he pitched no hit games in 4 straight seasons (1962-1965), the final one a perfect game.

The perfect game on September 9, 1965 was pitched against a Chicago Cubs team whose lineup included 3 future Hall of Fame players, Ernie Banks, Billy Williams and Ron Santo. Sandy struck out pinch hitter Harvey Kuenn, who was a former batting champion, to end the game.

A truly modest man, who has kept a decidedly low profile since leaving baseball, Sandy pitched shutouts in the fifth and deciding seventh games of the 1965 World Series, a feat matched only by Lew Burdette in 1957.

In 1963 Koufax beat the two time World champion, New York Yankees twice as the Dodgers swept the Fall Classic in four straight games.

Sandy was named World Series MVP but when I interviewed him in 1989, one of the few “Sandy interviews about Sandy,” he modestly pointed out that the Yankees scored but 4 runs in the World Series and three were against him. He credited “John (Podres), Don (Drysdale) and Ron” (Perranoski) for allowing but one run in the other two Dodgers’ victories.

“John, Don and Ron,” it rhymes and it is of a rich poem that weaves through a great time. I am glad a modest great, Sandy Koufax is my baseball hero and tears flowed when I saw him receive a richly deserved honor last week.

Sandy with Andy B, 1989