(This column first appeared in the March-April 2003
issue of The American Spectator.)
I almost saw Sandy Koufax pitch, once. He was the scheduled
starter in an early season Saturday night game against the St.
Louis Cardinals. We'd purchased tickets months in advance, and come
that dream date in April 1963 our history and civics teacher (he
introduced me to Orwell and Booker T. Washington) drove eight of us
lucky eighth-graders to the Taj Mahal of Dodger Stadium in the
silver '62 Impala station wagon owned by the nuns who ran (and
don't you ever doubt it) our Santa Barbara school. For most of us
it would be our first time ever at a major league game. On top of
that, we'd been lucky enough to pick a day on which God was going
to pitch.
How quickly we learned that a real religious experience involves
disappointment. From the parking lot we were awestruck by the
stadium itself, its five decks climbing to the dark sky, the smoke
from its light towers torches lifting us further heavenward. From
our box seats along the left-field line first thing I saw was
friendly giant Frank Howard warming up right in front of us,
joshing with young fans and occasionally tossing one of them a
ball. Later I'd compare seeing Howard for the first time with
seeing his Cardinal counterpart in left field, Stan Musial.
Everyone knew he was almost as great as Ted Williams, and
definitely nicer.
But everyone also knew there was no one nicer than Sandy Koufax.
Except as we learned just before game time, he'd been scratched.
Some arm problem or other. Larry Sherry would come out of the
bullpen to start. I can still hear myself groaning. He'd been the
World Series MVP in 1959, winning or saving each of the Dodgers'
four wins. But what had he done for us lately? That night he loaded
the bases with none out in the first inning, all three men scored,
and the home team went on to lose, meekly, 3-0, to a hot Ray
Washburn.
No game Koufax pitched ever ended on a whimper. Nor did it ever
start with one. My first taste of his brilliance was in 1959 when
he struck out a record 18 evil Giants at the L.A. Coliseum. Vince
Scully broadcast most every strike that night and every other time
I "heard" Koufax pitch. In some mysterious way the battery of
Koufax and Scully made Koufax strikeouts the most exciting play in
radio baseball. You never wanted to miss the beginning of a Koufax
outing. If he didn't strike out the side on nine pitches in the
first inning you'd worry not all was right with the world. By 1962
he was the most dominant pitcher in baseball history, so far as we
knew. But just as the real God was once taken from us, we knew we
could lose him at any time. That year saw Koufax miss the second
half of the season with a serious hand injury. In 1964 his season
would end in August, more arm trouble. Perfection on earth exacted
a price.
Yet perfection it was. A standard Koufax performance was a
four-hit shutout with ten or more strikeouts and no walks. His
famous opening day win in Yankee Stadium in the 1963 World Series
saw him strike out a record 15 Mantles and Marises, though to my
mind it was marred by the two-run home run he gave up to Tom Tresh
late in the game. Inexplicably, he gave up another home run before
winning the final game of that Series' four-game sweep. And what
about the time in Pittsburgh late in his career when he was bombed
in the first inning?
We expected a lot from this God, and of course he never really
let any of us down, and never has. Every postgame show was a study
of soft-spoken modesty. Scully or his sidekick Jerry Doggett would
congratulate him, and he'd reply, "Thanks very much, Vin/Jerry.
Yes, I felt good out there, my teammates made big plays behind me,
we scored some key runs, and it was a good win for the team." He
never threw at an opponent, except maybe once when, as his
excellent biographer Jane Leavy notes, he plunked Lou Brock in the
ribs after Brock had bunted his way on, stolen second, stolen
third, and scored on a sacrifice fly. Whereupon, after being hit,
Brock promptly stole second again. He'd then miss the next five
games. Koufax wasn't proud of himself for that.
He is best known today for declining to pitch the 1965 World
Series opener because it fell on Yom Kippur. In my parochial school
world -- and I suspect most American precincts -- that was the
first anyone had heard of that holy day. (The Yom Kippur war was a
distant eight years away.) The liberating decision clinched his
standing as the greatest Jewish sports hero ever. But more typical
must have been the reactions I experienced: Whatever Koufax wants
to do is fine by us. Besides, we knew he'd find another way to win
the series for the Dodgers, which he did by winning three of its
next six games, the last on only two days' rest despite a dead and
painful arm.
Koufax's final two seasons will not be surpassed: 54
complete games, 53 victories, 659 innings, 699 strikeouts, an
ERA well under two. Among these wins was a perfect game in
September 1965 in which he blew away the last six batters -- all of
this on a left arm that would swell to twice its normal size and
resist unimaginable pain. It will require the real God to explain
how Koufax did it.
(This column first appeared in the March-April 2003 issue
of The American Spectator.)
topics:
Sports
