Sandy Koufax on the Mound

What an amazing pitcher Sandy Koufax was, as we all know. I copied this out of piece quoting from Sandy Koufax : A Lefty's Legacy by Jane Leavy. It shows how much he was actually beyond amazing.

Drysdale started in his [Koufax's] place [on Yom Kippur] and got hammered. The score was 7-1 when Alston came to the mound to relieve him. "Hey, skip, bet you wish I was Jewish today, too," Drysdale said.

***

When Ozark approached him [Koufax] at his locker at Metropolitan Stadium on the eve of the seventh game of the 1965 World Series, Koufax told him, "I'm okay for tomorrow." It would be his third start in eight days. "He didn't want to be known as a person who couldn't have the strength and the ability to take the ball on two days' rest," Wilpon said. He did so eight times in his career, winning six; three were complete-game wins with a combined total of thirty-five strikeouts. He never lasted less than seven innings.

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Koufax was pitching on fumes. When he walked two batters in the first inning, Drysdale got up in the bullpen. He was a two-pitch pitcher without a second pitch. Roseboro [the Dodger's catcher] kept calling for the curve; Koufax kept shaking him off. Finally, Roseboro went to the mound for a conversation. For the first time, Koufax acknowledged how bad his elbow was. "He said, 'Rosie, my arm's not right. My arm's sore.' I said, 'What'll we do, kid?' He said, 'Fuck it, we'll blow 'em away."'

***

In the ninth inning, the 360th of his season, Koufax faced the heart of the Minnesota order: Tony Oliva, Harmon Killebrew, Earl Battey, and Bob Allison, a two-time batting champion, a six-time home-run leader, a four-time All-Star,
and a onetime Rookie of the Year. With one out, Killebrew singled sharply to left, the Twins' third hit of the game. Battey came to the plate. One swing, he thought, and I could be the world series MVP! By the time the words formed a sentence in his brain, the umpire had signaled, "Strike three."

Up to the plate strode Allison, a formidable slugger whose two-run home run off Osteen had forced the seventh game. He fouled off the first pitch and looked at two others for balls and then swung at the next. "It's two and two," announcer
Ray Scott informed the television audience. "Koufax is reaching back. Every time he's had to reach back, he's found what he needed."

Killebrew watched from first base as Allison swung through strike three for the final out of the series. "I told Bob, 'If you'd have swung at the ball as hard as you swung at the ground after you struck out, you might have hit it."'

***

It was his second shutout in four days, his twenty-ninth complete game of the season.