Sandy Koufax, in my humble opinion, the greatest pitcher of all time.
A couple of months ago, I promised to tell you how baseball came into my life. Unfortunately, I had to have emergency surgery and I wrote about that instead.
This month, I get back on track. The 2020 baseball season is winding down after only 60 games and we will be in the playoffs in a week or so, so I thought I better get this out before the season is over.
I don’t recall my first exposure to baseball. We were living in Costa Mesa, California at the time. At school, we played baseball during recess. I was pretty good at it and loved to play the game. Of course, there was no organized baseball for six-year-olds at the time.
Living in Southern California, I naturally became a Dodger fan. They moved from Brooklyn to L.A. when I was six, but I don’t remember it. My parents never discussed sports. I was much more educated in what was happening with the Cuban revolution or what Khrushchev was doing at the U.N., or the Suez Crisis or the U-2 Incident.
Baseball was a religion for young boys in the ‘50’s. Everyone had a favorite team, and everyone had one special player that they admired. Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle were on pedestals by themselves. No Dodgers could compete with them and I had to admit that they were great. They just weren’t Dodgers. I don’t remember Duke Snyder, but he wasn’t in their class any way.
This month, I get back on track. The 2020 baseball season is winding down after only 60 games and we will be in the playoffs in a week or so, so I thought I better get this out before the season is over.
I don’t recall my first exposure to baseball. We were living in Costa Mesa, California at the time. At school, we played baseball during recess. I was pretty good at it and loved to play the game. Of course, there was no organized baseball for six-year-olds at the time.
Living in Southern California, I naturally became a Dodger fan. They moved from Brooklyn to L.A. when I was six, but I don’t remember it. My parents never discussed sports. I was much more educated in what was happening with the Cuban revolution or what Khrushchev was doing at the U.N., or the Suez Crisis or the U-2 Incident.
Baseball was a religion for young boys in the ‘50’s. Everyone had a favorite team, and everyone had one special player that they admired. Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle were on pedestals by themselves. No Dodgers could compete with them and I had to admit that they were great. They just weren’t Dodgers. I don’t remember Duke Snyder, but he wasn’t in their class any way.
The "Say Hey Kid," Willie Mays.
In 1960 we moved from SoCal to Eugene, Oregon. Papa was fed up with the overcrowded metropolis. Something I didn’t learn until years later was that he also had to get away from Mama’s mother, Abuelita.
The Pacific Northwest was a baseball desert. The nearest team was in San Francisco, but no self-respecting Dodger fan could ever cheer for the Giants. I had learned to hate the Giants in SoCal, a prejudice that lives on to today. I’d rather beat the Giants than the hated Yankees.
In Oregon, I played baseball any chance that I got.
I was in the eighth grade and my parents owned the El Sombrero Mexican Restaurant. I didn’t get to play on the school’s baseball team because everyday after school I rode my bike to the restaurant, did my homework in a back booth and worked the dinner shift.
Before doing my homework though. I read the sports pages and picked through the box scores for every team. The league had expanded and added the Mets and the Astros (originally the Colt 45’s), both laughing stocks.
By this time the Dodgers were a powerhouse. Well not exactly, but they had the best pitching in baseball, maybe in all of baseball history. In their rotation were two Hall of Famers, Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. They were both dominating pitchers. Behind them in the rotation were Claude Osteen and Johnny Podres. They were unstoppable.
Then it happened. During the first week of school with the Dodgers in a hot pennant race with the hated Giants, Sandy Koufax pitched a perfect game.
The Pacific Northwest was a baseball desert. The nearest team was in San Francisco, but no self-respecting Dodger fan could ever cheer for the Giants. I had learned to hate the Giants in SoCal, a prejudice that lives on to today. I’d rather beat the Giants than the hated Yankees.
In Oregon, I played baseball any chance that I got.
I was in the eighth grade and my parents owned the El Sombrero Mexican Restaurant. I didn’t get to play on the school’s baseball team because everyday after school I rode my bike to the restaurant, did my homework in a back booth and worked the dinner shift.
Before doing my homework though. I read the sports pages and picked through the box scores for every team. The league had expanded and added the Mets and the Astros (originally the Colt 45’s), both laughing stocks.
By this time the Dodgers were a powerhouse. Well not exactly, but they had the best pitching in baseball, maybe in all of baseball history. In their rotation were two Hall of Famers, Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. They were both dominating pitchers. Behind them in the rotation were Claude Osteen and Johnny Podres. They were unstoppable.
Then it happened. During the first week of school with the Dodgers in a hot pennant race with the hated Giants, Sandy Koufax pitched a perfect game.
Mickey Mantle, "The Mick."
If you are not a baseball fan, you may ask, “What is a perfect game?”
A perfect game is when the pitcher puts every batter he faces out. Twenty-seven men come to the plate and twenty-seven men are out. No one reaches base, no one is walked, there are no errors. It is like a ballet. Each team member doing his part in perfect coordination with the man on the mound. It is a sight to behold. (In the intervening fifty-five years, I have never seen another perfect game, although seventeen have been thrown. The most recent perfect game was thrown by Mariners super-star Felix Hernandez, but I was sailing in Mexico when it happened.)
I don’t remember why I was at home that day, maybe I was sick, or it was a night game. But I was there. I watched as Kurt Gowdy and Tony Kubek called the game. I watched as Koufax mowed down fourteen batters on strike outs. I was in awe as inning after inning my hero sent the Giants down one-two-three.
(That was fifity-five years ago and I still get tears in my eyes as I write this.)
I had never seen such perfection. A man so much in control of his world.
And not only was it Koufax. Bob Hendley pitched for the Cubs. He threw a perfect game until the seventh inning when Lou Johnson scratched out a hit. Hendley did not give up an earned run. The only score was an unearned run in the fifth inning.
Many baseball scholars consider this the best baseball game ever played.
I was stunned. Inning after inning I had my heart in my throat. Could Koufax really do it? Would anyone ever score?
It’s not hard to say that after that game, I was a dyed-in-the-wool baseball fanatic. I’ve watched thousands of games since. I’ve been a life-long Dodger fan, but when I moved to Seattle in 1977, I became a Mariners fan too. That worked well since the Dodgers were in the National League and the Mariners in the American League.
My fantasy world series is the Dodgers vs. the Mariners. I couldn’t lose.
A perfect game is when the pitcher puts every batter he faces out. Twenty-seven men come to the plate and twenty-seven men are out. No one reaches base, no one is walked, there are no errors. It is like a ballet. Each team member doing his part in perfect coordination with the man on the mound. It is a sight to behold. (In the intervening fifty-five years, I have never seen another perfect game, although seventeen have been thrown. The most recent perfect game was thrown by Mariners super-star Felix Hernandez, but I was sailing in Mexico when it happened.)
I don’t remember why I was at home that day, maybe I was sick, or it was a night game. But I was there. I watched as Kurt Gowdy and Tony Kubek called the game. I watched as Koufax mowed down fourteen batters on strike outs. I was in awe as inning after inning my hero sent the Giants down one-two-three.
(That was fifity-five years ago and I still get tears in my eyes as I write this.)
I had never seen such perfection. A man so much in control of his world.
And not only was it Koufax. Bob Hendley pitched for the Cubs. He threw a perfect game until the seventh inning when Lou Johnson scratched out a hit. Hendley did not give up an earned run. The only score was an unearned run in the fifth inning.
Many baseball scholars consider this the best baseball game ever played.
I was stunned. Inning after inning I had my heart in my throat. Could Koufax really do it? Would anyone ever score?
It’s not hard to say that after that game, I was a dyed-in-the-wool baseball fanatic. I’ve watched thousands of games since. I’ve been a life-long Dodger fan, but when I moved to Seattle in 1977, I became a Mariners fan too. That worked well since the Dodgers were in the National League and the Mariners in the American League.
My fantasy world series is the Dodgers vs. the Mariners. I couldn’t lose.
Ken Griffey Jr. The greatest ballplayer I ever saw.
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