Sandy Koufax

Sandy Koufax (born Dec. 30, 1935, Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S.) is an American professional baseball player who, despite his early retirement due to arthritis, was ranked among the sport’s greatest pitchers. A left-hander, he pitched for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the National League (NL) from 1955 to 1957, continuing, after they became the Los Angeles Dodgers, from 1958 to 1966.

Born Sanford Braun, he was given his stepfather’s surname when his mother remarried. The young Koufax first excelled in basketball, which earned him a scholarship to the University of Cincinnati. There he earned a spot on the school’s varsity baseball team, and his pitching prowess led to tryouts with a number of professional teams. Koufax was signed by the Dodgers, and he left school after one year to immediately join the team’s major league roster.

Koufax pitched sparingly in his first two seasons with the Dodgers, and his performance was pedestrian in the following four: through his first six seasons as a professional, he had a cumulative record of 36–40 and an earned run average (ERA) of 4.10. His breakthrough came in 1961, when—after changing his pitching technique in spring training—he won 18 games, was named an NL all-star for the first of six consecutive times, and broke Christy Mathewson’s 58-year-old NL strikeout record with 269. From 1962 through 1965 Koufax had the lowest ERA in the NL, winning the NL Most Valuable Player (MVP) award in 1963 and the NL Cy Young Award in 1963 and 1965. He led the Dodgers to World Series titles in both 1963 and 1965, winning World Series MVP honours on both occasions. Koufax and right-handed Hall of Famer Don Drysdale formed one of the most imposing tandems of starting pitchers in Major League Baseball in the 1960s. The devoutly Jewish Koufax famously refused to pitch in game one of the 1965 World Series, which fell on Yom Kippur, but he returned to pitch in games two, five, and seven, throwing complete-game shutouts in the latter two contests. In his last season, 1966, he won 27 games and posted a 1.73 ERA, both career bests, and he took home his third Cy Young Award. On Sept. 9, 1965, he pitched his fourth no-hit game, a major league record (until 1981); the fourth no-hitter, against the Chicago Cubs, was also a perfect game (no player reached first base).

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During his career Koufax struck out 2,396 batters in 2,324 innings; his average of more than one strikeout per inning is a rare accomplishment. In each of three seasons—1963, 1965, and 1966—he struck out more than 300 hitters; his 382 strikeouts in 1965 set a major league record that remained unbroken until 1973. Twice he struck out 18 batters in a nine-inning game. After his playing career ended, Koufax worked as a television broadcaster and as a minor league pitching coach and adviser for the Dodgers. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971, the first year that he was eligible.