Review of Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy By Jane Leavy

(Published in hardback in 2002 by HarperCollins Publishers; reissued in 2010 by Harper Perennial)

A friend insisted that I read Jane Leavy's biography of Sandy Koufax. I agreed to, vaguely hoping, because I have my own long list of books waiting to be read, that he would forget about it. He didn't and even bought a copy and mailed it to me. So, had no choice. I remembered Koufax as part of the Drysdale/Koufax tandem that led the Los Angeles Dodgers to a couple of world series in the first part of the 1960s. Of course, I never gave a flip about the Dodgers and had no warm feelings for either of these pitchers. Neither, in my estimation, measured up to Bob Gibson of my Cardinal team. I resigned myself to reading a jock bio about a pitcher of no interest on a team of less interest. After a couple of weeks of procrastination, I reluctantly opened the book and started scanning its contents. I tried to figure out the minimum I could read to convince my generous friend that I had read the book. A few days later, I finished reading the book to the end. It turned out that Koufax's story is much more interesting than I imagined, and besides, this book is much more than a hero praisefest. It tells how baseball changed from the 1950s and early 1960s, the years Koufax was pitching, to the present big-money sport in which some players get contracts in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The changes were nudged along by Koufax and Don Drysdale when they "held out" against the contract offered them by the Dodgers in 1966. I liked many things about this book, whose talented writer delved deeply into some absorbing topics. One of them, early in the book, is the physics of pitching and how Koufax mastered it. I wish I had read this discourse on the correct mechanics of throwing a baseball back when I could have used the information to improve my mediocre fastball.

Of course, pitching creates unnatural stresses on the arm as it slings, twists, turns, pulls, and jerks. The arm is not built for the violence of hurling fastballs or the contortions of "pulling the shade" curve balls. Throwing them can wreak havoc on the muscles, tendons, connective tissues, and whatever else holds an arm together. Pitching certainly messed up Koufax's left arm. As Leavy describes in great detail, the last few years of Koufax's career -- years of extraordinary success -- were a time of great pain for him. After 1965, his left arm was permanently bent; he could not and cannot straighten it. To fight the pain caused by pitching, he took cortisone shots regularly and downed a variety of pills while on the mound. After he pitched a game, his arm would sometimes balloon to double its size or turn a strange color; other times, a knot the size of grapefruit would appear on his elbow. Still, Koufax kept pitching and winning. The story of Koufax's pitching prowess and success makes up the largest part of the book. It documents the frustrations of his first lackluster six years with the Dodgers. As a bonus baby, he had to remain on the major league team roster for a couple of years after he signed with the Dodgers. Thus, he had no chance to learn the subtleties of his craft and get some seasoning by pitching in the minor leagues. During these first six years, Leavy suggests, Dodger manager Walter Alston underused and misused Koufax. After six years in the majors, from 1955 through 1960, he had a career record of 36 wins and 40 losses, with an earned run average of over 4.0. The six years that followed were beyond successful. His record from 1961 through 1966 was 127 wins and 47 loses, with an ERA under 2. During this period, he was the dominant pitcher in the major leagues, throwing four no hitters, one of them a perfect game. Koufax retired at the end of the 1966 season, at the age of 31 and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame when he was 36, the youngest person to gain that honor. Leavy uses the perfect game, pitched on September 9, 1965, to structure the book, with a chapter to describe what happened each inning and interweaving Koufax's life story with the tale of the game. The game was remarkable not only for Koufax's perfect performance, but also because the opposing pitcher for the Chicago Cubs, Bob Henley, nearly matched Koufax's performance with a one hitter. Allowing only two Dodger to reach base, Henley lost the game 1-0; the winning run scored without the hit (walk, stolen base, error). Another aspect of Koufax's story, interweaved with the story of the perfect game, is Koufax's childhood in Brooklyn and his status as one of the few Jewish players in the major leagues. Although he was not a practicing Jew, he became a hero to many Jews through his success as a pitcher and his refusal to pitch in the first game of the World Series on October 6, 1965 because it was Yom Kippur, a major Jewish holiday. Leavy discusses in detail her views on the impact of Koufax's religion on his career, suggesting that his misuse during his first six years on the Dodgers was due, in part, to how he (as a Jew) was perceived by Alston and the higher management of the Dodgers. 2

A final part of Leavy's story is Koufax's behavior and reputation, and how it fits within the context of professional baseball. Koufax was an introvert with a strong sense of right and wrong that sometimes made him seem unlike other players. As a bit of an odd duck, he acquired a reputation as a reclusive, unapproachable, even dour, guy. Leavy refutes this perception with dozens of stories of Koufax's acts of kindness and generosity. At times, its seems she is proposing him for sainthood with her many stories of how Koufax touched the minds and lives of people who followed his career. Then she yanks away saintdom with a few stories of how he could sometimes be a jerk. Ultimately, it is clear that Koufax was perplexed by his fame and frustrated by how it interfered with a normal life. He valued and welcomed genuine connections with people, not one based on the superficial fan-hero nexus. He preferred to be an authentic man rather than a mythic hero. The book is engrossing not only because of its intriguing subject, but also because Leavy's exhaustive research and enlightening details present us with a rich story about an athlete who transcended the stereotypes and earned fame not only with his superior talents on the field but also with how he led his life. I learned much from the book, and I am glad that my friend sent it my way. Just don't do it again, O.K.? Dan Durning July, 2012