Sanford Koufax is an American former professional baseball left-handed pitcher. He pitched 12 seasons for the BrooklynLos Angeles Dodgers of Major League Baseball from 1955 to 1966. At age 36 in 1972, Koufax became the youngest player ever elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. He was an All-Star for six seasons and was the National League’s Most Valuable Player in 1963. His decision not to pitch Game 1 of the 1965 World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur garnered national attention.
About Sandy Koufax in brief
Sanford Koufax is an American former professional baseball left-handed pitcher. He pitched 12 seasons for the BrooklynLos Angeles Dodgers of Major League Baseball from 1955 to 1966. At age 36 in 1972, Koufax became the youngest player ever elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Koufax’s career peaked with a run of six outstanding years from 1961 to 1966, before arthritis in his left elbow ended his career prematurely at age 30. He won three Cy Young Awards in 1963, 1965, and 1966, by unanimous votes, making him the first three-time Cy Young winner in baseball history. His decision not to pitch Game 1 of the 1965 World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur garnered national attention as an example of conflict between professional pressures and personal beliefs. His 2,396 career strikeouts ranked 7th in history as of his retirement, at the time trailing only Warren Spahn among left-handers. He was an All-Star for six seasons and was the National League’s Most Valuable Player in 1963. He is also remembered as one of the outstanding Jewish athletes in American sports. His parents, Evelyn and Jack Braun, divorced when he was three years old. He grew up in Brooklyn, New York, to a Jewish family and was raised in Borough Park. He attended the University of Cincinnati and was a walk-on on the freshman basketball team, a complete unknown to assistant coach Ed Jucker. In spring 1954, he made the college baseball varsity team, which was coached by Jucker at that time.
In his only season, he went 3–1 with a 2. 81 earned run average, 51 strikeouts and 30 walks in 32 innings. In 1951, he joined a local youth baseball league known as the \”Ice Cream League\”. At the age of 15, he started out as a left- handed catcher before moving to first base. After seeing Koufax pitch for Lafayette, a part-time scout, Jimmy Murphy, invited him to an Ebbets Field tryout with the New York Giants. After trying out with the Giants at the Polo Grounds, he did the same for the Pittsburgh Pirates at Branch Rickey Field. During a tryout, his fastball broke the thumb of Sam Narkeforth, then the general manager of the Pirates. The Pirates, however, failed to offer Koufax a contract until after he was already committed to the Dodgers. There are two times Koufax started throwing in the field while the Dodgers scout Alston Campan assumed the hitter’s stance while Koufax was throwing. The two times are later said to have been part of a meeting between Campan and Dodgers manager Walter Alston. He later became a part of the Dodgers’ scouting director, Ebbet Thompson, and later served as an assistant director of scouting for the Los Angeles Dodgers. He also played for the San Diego Padres and the San Francisco Giants. He has a son, Kevin Koufax, who is a professional baseball player.
You want to know more about Sandy Koufax?
This page is based on the article Sandy Koufax published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 07, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
