Baseball Documentary, Sandy Koufax

yes where why for six years Sandy Koufax was all too human winning fewer games that he lost then from 1961 the 1966 he was without equal he led the league in strikeouts four times at the lowest er a five times he pitched four no-hitters won a hundred twenty nine games and three siyoung Awards all this before arthritis forced him to retire at age thirty since then he has protected his privacy the same way he protected a lead fiercely and with an uncompromising dignity I don't have much to say I just have one short statement I'll try to answer any questions today but he has a few minutes ago I sent a letter to buzzy asking for an alternative list he was like the meteor he came across and was so bright in his heyday and and the fires went out so fast you feel sorry for him but in a way you also feel sorry for yourself as a fan I mean I felt shortchanged it just made me sick that it wouldn't be able to watch cold facts picture again this was seventy two point headlines stuff anywhere in the country Sandy Koufax wasn't just la hero the whole country loves Sandy Koufax I don't regret one minute of the last 12 years traffic I would regret one year that was too many it's a rare athlete that will leave before his time simply because he knows he can't perform up to the standards that he set for the fans no one else in baseball history has ever won 20 games in his last season and then retired Koufax won 27 no one in the century retired after striking out 200 batters in his last season Koufax retired after striking up 317 when he quit his record was still sensational his last season but the pain was equally sensation I was getting pounded cortisone shots when I hit Reagan hard and I just feel like I don't want to take a chance on completely disabling myself it insulted him to think that pitch playing baseball was going to leave him with a hand or arm that couldn't do the things that normal people could do that's the thought of somebody who does not see themselves essentially as an athlete but as themselves as you thought about the loss of income well the loss of income let's put it this way if there a man who did not have use of one of his arms and you told him and cost a lot of money and he could buy back bed juice he'd give him every time he had if sandy koufax surprised the baseball world with his retirement in 1966 the greater secret was the deep debilitating pain he had been feeling for three seasons I met Koufax at the all-star game in 66 I went into the clubhouse and Koufax was sitting with his left arm in a tub of ice water I never saw an arm swollen that badly he saw the alarm on my face he said don't worry it always does this hit right pitch you know that's the first time I ever heard of being ice being a miracle drug not only did he play in pain but he he rested in pain there were times when sandy couldn't calm his hair there are times he had to shave his face with his right hand rather than its left hand because his left elbow hurt him so much he couldn't couldn't raise his hand to his face he got to the point where he said hell I'm not gonna be a the rest of my life and he just gave it up this was a guy who threw every pitch as hard as he could every pitch was a fastball or a sharp breaking curveball he wound up really giving his arm for the Dodgers the extent of the pain that he took anand or was just incredible um you had the ice you had the heat treatments he was taking these orange pills anti-inflammatory pills that made him sick to his stomach who never missed a story you know and started a lot of games with two days rest him yeah I couldn't believe it but the medical staff the trainer's the doctor they got me through it got a lot of years to live after baseball just I would like to live them with complete use of my body the news conference itself was one of the most moving news conferences I've ever attended and forty some years of doing this kind of stuff on television radio all the writers in the room stood up and they applauded they gave him an ovation it takes a lot to move writers the way that Sandy Koufax did like that it was more than Sandy Koufax he was he was a baseball player and he wanted to excel at what he did so much so that in September of 66 when he went to Walter Alston and said skip don't worry about me just throw me out there as much as you can but sandy had already known he was retired but he was good he was gonna go out with both barrels plays the bench in 1966 his last year in baseball there was one stretch he threw eight straight complete games and one of those games they beat the Mets by a score 15 to 3 and Koufax pitched the entire game do the complete game picture none of this uh seven games six and a half innings it was sort of a badge of honor to take the ball every four days and even occasionally every three days unless your arm was absolutely broken you were gonna take your start goofin I personally look back on it wonder you know what did the Dodgers know I mean did they know they're putting this guy at risk he pitched the last game in Los Angeles Coliseum a meaningless game and threw 205 pitches for Koufax no game was meaningless the regular-season dominant in the big games dominant in the World Series even better over fifty seven innings in the Fall Classic Koufax struck out 61 and compiled a record 0.95 er a there are some pitchers who shy away from those moments he lived for that's why I do what I do to go out there and have the ball in my hand when it matters the most he loved that I mean fat that was his drug some historian wrote a book the name of the book was the hundred most influential Jews of all time and it had Einstein at the top and Jesus Christ Moses and there was one athlete only one athlete on the list and the athlete was Sandy Koufax nothing contributed more to Koufax his place in social history that is following the footsteps of Hank Greenberg who in 1934 chose not to play on Yom Kippur the difference was that Koufax elected not to start Game one of the 1965 World Series the Day of Atonement is a most sacred day of the Jewish year it's a 24-hour fast from sunset to sunset and the juice stays in the temple the entire day he wanted baseball to respect the Jewish holiday as much as baseball would respect Christian holidays he believed in what he was doing a lot of people say I believe in this but when it comes to paying the price will not pay the price to celebrate his own Judaism Here I am a proud Jews not even going to play a baseball game because of a Jewish holiday Wow the Jews were applauding in the streets I was still in high school 65 Jewish kid from New York we we didn't have very Jewish Sports idols and here was Sandy making the statement of thing how cool is this there was no hard decision for me it was just a thing of respect yeah I was trying to make a statement and I had no idea that would impact that many people I was conflicted only three years removed from my bar mitzvah and daily attendance at Hebrew school and I wanted him to pitch dammit I didn't want him to sit out I was a Dodger fan I wanted Koufax to pitch after the Dodgers lost Game one with Don Drysdale on the mound Koufax gave up just one earned run in six innings of Game two but Los Angeles was beaten 5-1 I don't think I've ever heard a player sin and him why Denis play now if we hadn't lost in sevens might have been different you know I don't think sandy saw it as any added pressure for himself because he knew in his heart he did we had to do after the Dodgers tied the series at two Koufax pitched brilliantly in Game five throwing a shutout while fanning ten twins to go back to Minnesota game six the twins win now it's game 7 its tries Dale's turn try still 123 games they're here Don Drysdale is ready on three days rest to pitch Game seven and Walter Alston sends Drysdale to the bullpen and pitches Koufax on two days rest against the Minnesota lineup that had plenty of good right-handed hitting in it spins gully ready to bring you all the action of the 7th of deciding game of the 1965 World Series the big guessing game is over and the Koufax is the Dodger pitcher my warm Minnesota in game seven are really only hope was that because he was coming back on two days rest that he just wasn't going to have much or wasn't going to be able to go he hadn't had it and he had been knocked out Walter Alston would have been criticized for not starting Don Drysdale but Koufax his record with the pennant on the line or the World Series on the line was mr. stagger staggering Koufax so far has not been relying as much on the curveball my way of thinking he did his last time we know this is Sandy Koufax this is also a great Minnesota Twins team with hitters like Killebrew Oliva Bobby Allison and he's trying to get by on one pitch buh-bye Lou warranty does not have much disturbance he's been doing it the battle leading to nothing in the bottom of the fifth Koufax's curveball was still among the missing and I went out patted a sandwich I called him Sam I said dad what's happening the curveball he says rose they just don't have I said well what we gonna do he says it blown away that's what we did for me just got back here that's all got it that's the best among Koufax his strikeout victims was American League batting champion Tony Oliva it's only a five fast boy row boom boom boom I can't believe it he told fastball bye to me fight I never I never touch the ball I almost felt bad for our hitters cuz we had a great hitting ballclub and it was like you know a big leaguer gets a little bigger they had no chance boo is on first with one out he can Nickelback gets his 10th strikeout every pitcher of course likes music ad with a strikeout assistant which of course not he games this was the seventh game of the World Series and final game of the 65 World Series he was pitching on two days rest in his elbow was so bad he couldn't straighten it out and he went out there and pitched it to nothing shutout this man was out on a mission when he's on a mission he's gonna beat you every single Jewish kid I grew up with in New York revered Sandy Koufax and thought that it was something very important very significant that he didn't pitch on a high holiday but then that he came back on two days rest eventually to pitch game 7 and stick the bats right up the Minnesota Twins rear-end uh there wasn't a Jewish kid that I knew who didn't get a lift out of what that represented born in Brooklyn in 1935 the life of Sanford Braun changed dramatically when his father Jack left the family his parents split when he was three years old he never really got a chance to know his biological father and it had no interest in knowing him either his mother Evelyn remarried later when he was nine years old and in fact he took the name of his stepfather Koufax he was adopted by a man named Irving Koufax sandy was devoted to this man and vice versa his mother was a lot like sanding the fact that she didn't say a whole lot she was very reserved and quiet there was a story where Time magazine once sent a reporter over to the house to do a story and the Koufax family and the gentlemen was there all evening and said walked out of there saying you know mrs. Koufax and I think three words the whole night sandy was a little special he was quiet he was a little shy but when he was playing athletics he was a dynamo Eskimo was his loving he plated night and day and he never wanted to play baseball he just played because that was something to do found a wound up in baseball almost by accident there's a man named Hilton Bari a Sandlot team in Brooklyn and I guess during infield he decided I should pitch my father said he's gonna be a pitcher I'm gonna make him a pitcher so we have to get him to play with us on our sale our team despite his obvious pitching talent Koufax gained local fame as a 6 2 forward at Lafayette High School ranking second in his division of the public school league in scoring he earned a college basketball scholarship for some reason he fell in love with the idea of Cincinnati University and just by the accident that the freshman basketball coach was also the varsity baseball coach I first met any Koufax at the University of Cincinnati talking to him he told me after seeing this play in Madison Square Garden that was a school that he wanted to attend and play some basketball and really only went out for the baseball team because he heard that the team was gonna be going to New Orleans I'd ever been in New Orleans so I decided I'd probably be a pretty good baseball player maybe he said hey coach I'm a pitcher he's the coach I assure you and he said no no I like fits in the Sandlot you know I was pretty good I said kid the season's over with I'll take a look at you and I did take a look at him and what I saw was unbelievable so they took Sandy Koufax into the University gymnasium where he was warming up with a catcher and Koufax threw the first pitch over the catcher's head and the catcher turned around and said I want any part of this guy despite its unpredictability Koufax is powerful left arm began to get more attention than his jump shot a schoolboy sports editor from the Brooklyn Eagle named Jim Murphy had seen sandy and he recommend him to the Dodgers and the Dodgers had out campaña squat look at him camp honest said to me that there were two times in my life when the hair has come up on the back of my neck the first time was when I saw the Sistine Chapel and the second time is when I saw Sandy Koufax throw a fastball in 1954 Koufax and his hometown Dodgers agreed to a fourteen thousand dollar signing bonus in the major league minimum salary of $6,000 at the time baseball had what was known as the bonus rule if you signed a contract with a major league team and received a bonus of more than $4,000 you would have to stay on that major league teams roster for the first two years of your career my first two years I just sat in the big leagues who really did very little except watch now all of a sudden you realize you know you're not trained for your job and it took a while I had not pitched I'd pitched four or five Sandlot games and four games in college that's it my first recollection of Sandy Koufax is in Vero Beach his first spring and it was like 10 o'clock in the morning and Sandy's first pitch went sailing over the backstop landed on the roof of the press room clunk and it woke up a 65 year old sports writer who was in there take a morning nap when he first came up he couldn't throw a baseball inside the batting cage now that's pretty wild he was just sort of a fish out of water so to speak in those first few years he had no business being there Sandy Koufax was not major league ready not even close and it really his development because the Dodgers were a very good team and they couldn't afford to run this wild throwing rookie out there with the with a pennant on the line every year you would see spurts of brilliance in Koufax where you knew when he threw a fastball by somebody that they had no chance I mean they had no chance the only way you were beating Koufax early in his career was the fact that he was walking everybody Koufax has control problems continued after the Dodgers changed hometowns in 1958 in six seasons he compiled a four point one OER a and a 36 and 40 record it was frustrating in fact I asked out at one time you know I had an argument with buzzy in the Coliseum when we moved to Los Angeles I said you know I want to get out of here he came to me in the tunnel of the Coliseum and said that he was retiring he was going home and I said when do you limit he said tomorrow's will be in my office tomorrow I'll have the chicken for you Gracie told me that in the back was own mind he was thinking I'm throwing down the gauntlet to Koufax it you know it's up to him now to pick it up later he's came to me and he said I've got to go back to spring training next year and give it a real shot real shot and if I still feel the same way I'm gonna quit he gets the spring training in 61 and he's scheduled to pitch in a split squad game against the twins in Orlando first pitch I think I called for a curve ball was a ball then I called for a changeup was a ball and then I called for a fastball and it was a ball and we had bases loaded 90 and throwing strikes and I said sandy what you really need to do now is take something off the ball I said lay it in there and let them hit the ball and we get some outs I went back behind the plate and he just wound up and just sit here hit the ball well nobody hit the ball and he struck out the side and it worked out you know I pitched the eight innings that pitched a no-hitter for the eight innings and I think it was the start of my attitude changing the norm sure he taught him to relax his grip a little bit relax his body and he got complete control of his body to where he was a fantastic picture best I've seen from the will to win and it wants people to realize he's the bachelor to the dry behind it he believed that players played best when driven to the head you think you know revealed by the people who do sports century weeknights at 8:00 on ESPN Classic classic I don't think anybody's ever had six years like sandy koufax head from 1961 to 1966 he won three side young awards when there was only one side Young Award given for both legs pitchers so to have the unofficial Triple Crown of wins strikeouts and earned run average now Koufax won that Triple Crown three times in a four year period sandy reading signs into his wind-up due to pitch back catching him was like well we're gonna kick somebody's ass tonight his mechanics are so pure he looked like he wasn't even throwing hard in select so 98 miles an hour you know Sandy's hands if you look at it could almost go right around the equator of a baseball and touch at the very end of Koufax's delivery has left shoulder would rock back is like the recoil of a rifle he threw so hard that the muscles were adjusting and pushing his shoulder back I've never seen that in any other pitcher he was snake like he was elegant and powerful it was just awesome to see the twist in that arm the tremendous power every ounce of strength that he had went into that pitch Koufax came straight over the top which gave his ball extra spin and rotation would give it that little flare at the end where the ball would rise six to eight inches as a crossed home plate he had more than Heat he had that massive curveball I mean we called it a yellow hammer jobs off the table Koufax ready and delivers serve alright Marichal was hitting against Sandy one day at Candlestick Park he's got two strikes on him and sandy throws him a curve and Marichal swung straight down at that curveball while I was breaking down and it is bad a home blade broke his back and Merrill she'll come back he says that's ridiculous breaking your bat on home plate he's that's a nastiest curveball I've ever seen I couldn't hit him sandy was backed me out two or three times a game and I knew every pitch he going throwing fastball breaking ball whatever I knew it and actually you let you look at it and you still couldn't hit it I just called Koufax a comfortable old for for somebody asked me what time was it like hit low for coal fare I see you ever drink coffee with a fork from 1961 to 1963 Koufax led the league in strikeouts twice and gained fifty seven victories then in Game one of the 1963 World Series he made a statement heard throughout the land there was all sorts of focus on that World Series because the Dodgers were coming home to New York it was a Subway Series except the subway grant 3,000 miles just going on the Yankee Stadium it's the or or or just the mystique of it it's awesome man is overwhelming the Yankees batting now the second inning and the Dodgers lead import another here's Mickey Mantle we start him off with a bundle big curveball strike then we hit him down here on the outside part of the plate with a good fastball and he stepped out and he said huh he's supposed to hit that kind of stuff now the windup by Santa Ito the boos it's a strike oh my god he was thought a curveball that day that was simply unhittable he'd start that curveball up here and break down here for a strike the Yankees just left home plate shaking their heads I don't think they had seen anybody pitch like that i watch sandy get 10 11 12 13 14 Sandy Koufax who is tied Carl Erskine record with 14 strikeouts was in one pitch of breaking it here's the 2 2 pitch the brightest one people have known that from the 61 and 62 seasons the way that he had turned the corner but to do it on a national stage like that was just remarkable Koufax followed his overpowering game one performance with another victory in Game four as the Dodgers swept the Yankees to win the 63 World Series for the year he won the Cy Young and MVP after finishing the regular season 25 and 5 you guys divvied up the biggest World Series person history tummy what are you gonna do with all that loot well I'm married American I'm going out and have a ball when he wasn't enjoying himself off the field Koufax was building his mystique by pitching three no-hitters in three years living in LA and and and being a fan and knowing of Koufax pitched you want to be sure if you didn't have a ticket to listen to Scully because you never knew it was gonna be a no-hitter I could hardly wait to go the ballpark when he pitch for us in Los Angeles because there was always a chance he's gonna pitch a no-hitter he had that good stuff then in September of 1965 Koufax reached the pinnacle of his talent in his sensational career as Sandy Koufax walked out to the mound to fence a faithful night where he turned in a no-hitter but tonight who ate any he has pitched a perfect game well he was just right on and he couldn't wait to get to the mound he walked for it faster than my own he got the ball he got his warm-up could wait for the hitters to get in the batter's box sandy reading signs into his wind-up to to pitch back he is two outs away I stroke up three times on nine pitches with no wasted pitches at all one two three gone one two three gone one two three gone he was like a machine on the mound and he looked into getting time one out away from the promised land you just knew when sandy was pitching you could be looking at history do into the Harvey game one strike away sandy into his wind-up is the best and with the first time in my career that I've seen an athlete just have it all I mean just put it all together just one time Koufax finished the season with a record 382 strikeouts meanwhile his fire balling teammate Don Drysdale was also pitching with brilliance combining for 200 victories from 1961 to 1965 they were one of the most formidable mound duo's in history often taking the boughs in tandem this is sad Lou sandy oh yeah sandy how's Little Orphan Annie how's Danny Warbucks you know who you know who this is when they put this building up by spring training of 1966 Koufax and Drysdale informed owner Walter O'Malley they would negotiate their contracts together the thing there did annoy O'Malley was that they linked up see baseball had been able to by dealing with one person at a time and avoiding any semblance of a union they've been able to pretty much keep keep the game the way they wanted it it's basically I'm not saying till Don's half peanuts not signing til I'm happy sandy and Donald came in to see me and said they wanted $250,000 for three years I said fine so I mean fine I said two frigid / three well you got this oh no no no we won 125 a piece for three as I said so they held out they threatened to Barnstorm in Japan and not come in but Walter O'Malley knew if players had nowhere to go there are all kinds of crazy stories they're gonna go into the movies they're gonna do this this is all rhetoric and at the end Walter O'Malley cuts his losses signs a contract with both of them for over a hundred grand not as much as they wanted far more than he wanted but he got them back on the field and they won the pen whether we gain anything or not but you know it was that that was our statement more so than anything else more than his well-chosen words Koufax's farewell statement was his last season 27 and 9 with an e ra of 1.73 it is the finest swan song of any pitcher in history Koufax's is sort of like the the James Dean of pitchers Dean has three movies and they're all classics Koufax has those five wonderful seasons from 1962 through 1966 he walks away from the whole thing at age 30 and the thing about him is like the the sort of the gunslinger walking out of town he doesn't look back now when the Dodgers train arrived in Los Angeles from his cross-country trip from Brooklyn Sandy Koufax embraced a new world there they are instead of now we're here jari nothing happened any disappointed no sir carrying all his money I thought well I'm glad nothing happened sir he partook a lot of the things that li had to offer the restaurants the culture the movie stars not that sandy was especially flashy or man-about-town but there was a time when he was dating a Miss USA runner-up and driving around in a convertible through the streets of LA he would immerse himself in the culture and take what he wanted out of it Koufax benefits from being the first utterly charismatic strikeout no hit pitcher who's really a creature of the television era by the mid-60s when when Koufax was kicking everybody had a TV every dorm room you know every dorm in the college had a TV every bar had a TV Koufax was photogenic using mr. handsome I had little junior high school girlfriend at the time and uh she was in love sandy Cooke sighs Keys man on her and I was kind of like somebody jealousy going here like 14 like later look at me girl she's like oh he's ten he's so cute in 1966 his autobiography Koufax revealed little about the inner man he clearly has an interior sense of himself that goes beyond merely being a celebrity makes you want to know him more but it also makes him want to reveal himself less celebrities in our society are eaten up by the public and there are people who get satisfaction out of that he was not one of them six weeks after his retirement Koufax went against the grain of privacy by signing a ten-year 1 million dollar contract with NBC to be its color analyst it proved to be a bad match probably sick any Koufax his only major mistake in his life was trying to be a broadcaster it's completely ill suited for the job NBC decided he's the top guy he's the big star and they hired him to do baseball games and the best pitcher in the game certainly had some something to offer and he had nothing to offer I'm of the opinion sandy that you're Tom Seaver and the today first time yes it is the first time the only thing I'm worried about yesterday I think every met fan in New York came up to me and said do me a favor don't pick them play-by-play men would set him up to say well sandy is I'm sure you can relate to this or what was it like when you were on the man what were you feeling pitching to some of these great hitters Willie Mays Hank Aaron sandy wouldn't bite on those things did not want to talk about himself sandy told me one time I'm not here to tell you how well I pitched and how many games I won I'm here to tell you the hell well that man down there on the mound his pitching or not pitching that well he cut a dashing figure on TV looked like he was made for the part but just would not reveal enough about himself to really make it as a broadcaster in February of 1973 Koufax quit NBC with four years left on his contract and withdrew from the public eye the thing about Sandhya is that he always was and always is it always will be a terribly terribly private person I wish I could be as private I got too much ego going in to my self-centeredness to to get his private as he is and there's something else and he on the phone talked to get his address read Patterson who was the publicity director for the Dodgers didn't even have his number when he wanted to reach Koufax for some kind of project he had to send him a Western Union Sandy Koufax was so hard to greet used to keep his telephone inside his oven wouldn't answer the phone he would have a secret code where he would bring the telephone and maybe one or one and a half times and then hang up and then dial back and then it was okay for him to take the phone out of the oven many of the Dodger family I mean the players I mean it were sandy net was sanded living in therapy sandy living in Billings Montana sanded lived on a ranch he moved to Carpinteria on the coast near Santa Barbara a small town near the coast in Santa Barbara he moved to him remote town in North Carolina for little while just for a little while I think that even even that was too remote for for sandy over two decades Koufax changed residences at least a half-dozen times he divorced his wife and daughter of movie star Richard Widmark in the early 80s one time I was living in Malibu when I ran into sandy I said sandy we're having this party and I would like to have you come sandy said okay and about two hours later I got a phone call Sandy Koufax and he said well he says I wonder if it would be alright if I brought my girlfriend to the party tonight sandy of course it would be alright I mean who would have who would have felt constrained to call you up and ask if they could bring a bring their fiance or their girlfriend except Sandy Koufax he's just a different person which is a very nice person you know he's not complicated at all distally I asked him the $64 question the perception is that you are a recluse and I could see his eyes bulge I could see the steam come out of his ears and he just looked at me as if that's just a bunch of I think he just sees himself as you know a very private individual who wants people to respect his desires as he respects theirs as at the Final Four in Seattle and I saw this guy looked to be a great shape looked about my age said I know that guy it took me about half the game of turning around looking to look on that I realized with Sandy Koufax he blended in with the people in the stands he didn't need to be recognized he lives in his own world very self-sufficient Koufax's inner world was scurrilous Lee violated in December of 2002 when an item in the New York Post insinuated without basis that he was gay although the tabloid ran an apology Koufax severed all ties with the Dodgers because both the team and the newspaper are owned by the same company Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation the following February Koufax visited the Mets at their spring training camp in Florida I feel honored that he has allowed me to enter into his world but I also appreciate and understand his privacy it's like strange cuz you want to go home and tell everybody that you know you talked with Sandy today but you also realize and respect that sandy for whatever reason you know doesn't want you to talk about he's been entirely true to himself throughout his whole life when he's had the pressures of media public um really everybody wanting to draw him out and to know more about Sandy Koufax you were always aware that there was something in there you were never going to get to there's always something he was holding in reserve his final game turned out to be Game two of the 1966 World Series the Dodgers got shutout and there were two fly balls hit out to center field at the Dodgers centerfielder Willie Davis did not see and wound up miss playing four errors he threw one ball away for an additional error when he comes in from the outfield after three errors standing outside the dugout of waiting for him is Sandy Koufax's shake his hand pat him on the back in 1972 less than six years after that final game Koufax at 36 was the youngest player inducted into the Hall of Fame I don't even know if Babe Ruth could be said to have the same impact on a single ball game every time he played you know every time he walked to the mound in the early 1960s you had the right to have a reasonable expectation that there would be a noted you cannot say that with any other pitcher that pitch to this time he was not the greatest pitcher of the 20th century and he wasn't even close I wouldn't have Koufax perhaps in the top ten a career is more than five years it's more than peak performance endurance longevity count for something people object to him being rated the greatest one of the greatest as he only had what six good seasons but they were supportive seasons too much of baseball rating Hall of Fame rating his attendance records guy hangs around forever Oh God look at those figures your 3,000 hits look but how how important it is how important are the seasons I've seen some remarkable pitchers Greg Maddux is a remarkable artist Bob Gibson is a Dominator Tom Seaver was out standing Carl's magnificent but the man who stands alone as a most dominating picture ever saw without a doubt and with no equal Sandy Koufax if you ask players of that era or anybody who watched sandy in the 60s he's a mythic figure before the World Series in the late 70s after he'd been retired for more than ten years I believe he was 42 pitch batting practice to the heart of the Dodger lineup - Ron Cey and Steve Garvey and Dusty Baker and he was just throwing fast balls to them and they couldn't even get the ball out of the cage and the first two guys he broke like four pants and I didn't see any aluminum around so I said you know I'll hit the cages later I'll just watch you a coach another Dodger coach ran out to talk to Koufax it was a pitching coach then and any whispered and Koufax ear and Koufax suddenly ran off the mound and the other pitcher came out to finish the batting practice and the obvious reason was an hour before a World Series game Sandy Koufax retired for 12 years is putting the heart of the Dodger batting order into the slump he still through 85 miles an hour at the age of 50 something years old but he never wanted people to photograph him he never wanted to be interviewed very much all he wanted to be was just another minor-league instructor throwing BP and spring training by retiring on top Koufax preserved our memory of his greatness and spared us the sight of his talents diminishing today except for a rare appearance at a card show or a spring training camp Sandy Koufax stays to himself define not by what he did but by who he is free SPN classics sports century I'm Chris Fowler

Channel: Extreme Baseball

Views: 182,828

Keywords: frisco, crazy, dudeperfect, trick shots, basketball trick shots, Baseball, STUNT DRIVING EDITION, boom stick, trickshot, world series, dallas, funny, cool, stetson athletics, stetson hatters, stetson baseball, first pitch, not top 10, atlantic sun, atlantic sun baseball, BASEBALL GAME

Id: UaGBjAmnkPk

Length: 43min 2sec (2582 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 29 2014