|
|
|
My Other Sandy
 Sandy. That
would be Koufax. I’ve written about him before. Outstanding left-hander. For
five magical years, with the Los Angeles Dodgers, he was the best.
 Not
quite perfect, maybe, except the night of September 9, 1965, against the Chicago Cubs.
That night the losing pitcher, Bob Hendley, was nearly perfect too, giving up
only one hit and one (unearned) run. The Dodgers weren’t exactly
sluggers that year, hitting just 69 home runs, 6 of them by their second-best
pitcher, big Don Drysdale, who won 23 games (to Sandy’s 26).
Fourteen strikeouts Sandy got that night, in his fourth no-hitter in
four years and the only perfect game of his short career. Short, but
peerless. He had to quit pitching at age 30 in 1966, his arm destroyed by its
own cruel power, and I never really followed major-league baseball after that.
The name Koufax would never appear in another box score.
A
new season is about to begin, so the other day I grabbed Jane Leavy’s
Sandy Koufax, which turned out to be the most thrilling baseball
book I’ve ever read, even better than Michael Lewis’s wonderful
Moneyball. It kept me laughing with a lump in my throat. I was young
and joyful again. Still am, until further notice. Until this book’s spell
wears off. Sooner or later it has to, a little.
Never mind the awesome stats. Leavy’s book is about other
things. The short list would include grace; loyalty; physical and moral
courage; humor and wit; above all, honor. A man made complex not by his
dark side (Koufax just doesn’t seem to have one) or “inner
demons,” but by the sheer multiplicity of his qualities. He reminds me
of my best friend, but he pitched better.
As
an extremely promising young southpaw, Koufax agreed to sign with the
Dodgers (still in Brooklyn then) for a modest $14,000 bonus. Even allowing
for inflation, he turned out to be worth every penny. Other teams offered
far more money, and he must have known he was worth far more; but he
politely declined, for no better reason than that he’d already given his
word. And the quietly proud Jewish kid loved Brooklyn. Love and a handshake.
That’s Koufax.
Leavy interviewed more than 400 people who knew him, but found
nobody with a bad word to say about him. On the contrary, everyone seemed
to have sweet and funny memories of his acts of kindness, both to raw,
lonely rookies and to old and dying teammates. When he was a huge star, he
went out of his way to look up old friends who assumed he’d long
forgotten them. Of all the perks of superstardom, the one he loved most
was giving joy. He is still adored as even the enormously loved Babe Ruth
could never be.
![[Breaker quote for My Other Sandy: I remember him, too.]](2007breakers/070329.gif) Koufax
was as subtly analytical
about throwing a ball as Ted Williams was about hitting one. He saw his whole
body as a catapult, and he refined his delivery until it was mechanically
perfect. He had a brain to go with that arm.
His
fastball was nearly invisible, his curve Satanic. When, after his 25 and 5
season in 1963, an awed Yogi Berra wondered, “How the hell did he lose
five?” Maury Wills, Koufax’s teammate, explained, “He
didn’t. We lost them for him.” True. To judge by the way the
Dodgers hit when he took the mound, there should be a warning in future
editions of the Talmud that the goyim won’t score runs for a Jew.
Consider the fate of another fine Jewish lefty, Harvey Haddix of the
Pittsburgh Pirates. On May 26, 1959, before Koufax achieved stardom,
Haddix pitched a perfect game against the Milwaukee Braves, whose lineup
included three of baseball’s greatest sluggers: Henry Aaron, Eddie
Mathews, and Joe Adcock. But the Pirates failed to score even one run. So
Haddix pitched three more perfect innings! An all-time record! And still the
Pirates failed to score!
Finally, in the thirteenth inning, the Pirates committed an error,
Haddix walked Aaron intentionally, and Adcock belted one over the fence.
Game over. Losing pitcher: Haddix.
If
Koufax had enjoyed a longer career, we can only guess how many more no-
hitters and perfect games he might have pitched; on the other hand, given
Dodger hitting, he might have met Haddix’s fate once or twice.
Which brings me to the only flaw I can find in Sandy Koufax: his
tendency to wilt under pressure. Want proof? Well, his lifetime batting
average was .097. But in his eight World Series games, it dipped to an anemic
.053.
Joseph Sobran |
||
| Copyright © 2007 by the
Griffin Internet Syndicate, a division of Griffin Communications This column may not be reprinted in print or Internet publications without express permission of Griffin Internet Syndicate 
|
||
|
||
|
Archive Table of Contents
Current Column Return to the SOBRAN’S home page. |
||
|
|
| FGF E-Package columns by Joe Sobran, Sam Francis, Paul Gottfried, and others are available in a special e-mail subscription provided by the Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation. Click here for more information. |