Life magazine sandy koufax biography

Several authors have given readers a glimpse of Sandy Koufax’s life and career. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)

Beneath the orderly reporting of baseball accomplishments that Sandy Koufax compiled in nine-inning ballgames over 162-game seasons and several World Series is a much less well-structured human narrative about the man.

Terms such as “the J.D. Salinger of baseball,” “a Greta Garbo-like isolation,” and more simply “reclusive” have all too often been deployed to one-dimensionally characterize Koufax, the result of his infrequent interactions with the media after his Hall of Fame enshrinement in Cooperstown in 1972. The nature of the introverted, unassuming Dodgers left-handed pitcher is much more nuanced.1

It is relatively easy to refute the “reclusive” label tagged on Koufax from an empirical perspective, since he was not bashful about participating in occasional public events. For instance, Koufax appeared at a White House ceremony in 2010 at which President Obama quipped, “Sandy and I actually have something in common–we are both lefties. He can’t pitch on Yom Kippur; I can’t pitch.” It is the intellectual aspect of reclusive as a Koufax character trait that has had long-lasting impact, due to the lack of suitable substitute descriptors. This is largely because only a few biographies have examined Koufax.2

This article probes four aspects of the biography production relating to Koufax: (1) the 1966 autobiography ghostwritten by Ed Linn and its implicit character revelations, (2) the dearth of biography published about Koufax during the next three decades, (3) the books by Ed Gruver and Jane Leavy published at the turn of the twenty-first century that provide some understanding of the existential Koufax, and (4) the possibility of future biographies of Koufax.

Biography is the window into the character of a public figure, far more than a simple re

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Biography of Sandy Koufax by Jane Leavy

Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy is a non-fiction book by sportswriter Jane Leavy. Published by HarperCollins in 2002, the book follows the career trajectory of Sandy Koufax, Hall of Fame pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the social changes which occurred during it. The book also covers Koufax's role in baseball's labor movement and his impact on and standing in the Jewish American community. It is structured around a retelling of Koufax's perfect game on September 9, 1965.

Background

Leavy, a former sportswriter for The Washington Post, initially was not expecting to write to the book on Koufax who known for declining interview requests and preferring not to be written about at all. After hearing her out and agreeing to meet her at Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Florida, Koufax gave his reluctant approval, telling her, "This book has to be yours, not mine."

Though he did not sit down for an interview with her, Koufax allowed her to talk to his friends and old teammates, who would not have otherwise sat down for an interview, and also agreed to verify biographical facts. The only people he requested she not talk to were the children of his sister, a request Leavy honored. She ended up interviewing over 400 people for the book.

The book's purpose, according to Leavy, was to document Koufax's career in light of the social changes that took place, including the civil rights movement, the advent of television in sports, and the labor movement in baseball. Though she did not discuss Koufax's private life in detail, she wrote about his personality and his aversion from his own celebrity and reasons for his want of privacy. She also wrote of Koufax's relationship with Judaism and his own Jewish identity in light of his decision to sit out Game 1 of the 1965 World Series due to it falling on Yom Kippur which made him a Jewish icon.

1935—Present

Quick Facts

FULL NAME: Sanford Koufax
BORN: December 30, 1935
BIRTHPLACE: Brooklyn, New York
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Capricorn

Who is Sandy Koufax

Born on December 30, 1935, in Brooklyn, New York, Sandy Koufax signed by the hometown Brooklyn Dodgers, the hard-throwing left-hander was the most dominant pitcher in baseball until elbow arthritis forced an early retirement at age 30. Koufax became the youngest player inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972, and has since served as a pitching instructor for his former team.

Early Years

Sandy Koufax was born Sanford Braun on December 30, 1935, in Brooklyn, New York. The future baseball great took on his more familiar surname at age 9 when his mother, Evelyn, remarried attorney Irving Koufax. An outstanding schoolboy athlete, Koufax starred at basketball and barely played baseball during his time at Lafayette High School. However, he emerged as a hard-throwing left-handed pitcher at the University of Cincinnati, and left after one year to sign with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Baseball Career

Koufax made his debut for the Dodgers in 1955. Despite displaying tantalizing ability—he struck out 14 batters in his second major league start—the left-hander was too wild to remain a regular in the rotation. And as one of the few Jewish players in baseball, he encountered bigotry from opposing players and even within his own clubhouse.

Koufax finally gained control of his overpowering fastball and knee-buckling curveball in the early 1960s, and embarked on one of the most dominant pitching runs in baseball history. From 1962 to 1966, he recorded 111 wins against only 34 losses, led the National League in ERA five times, set a single-season record with 382 strikeouts, and won three Cy Young Awards and one Most Valuable Player trophy. He dazzled in the national spotlight when he set a World Series single-game record with 15 strikeouts in 1963, and again when he threw a perfect game to wrap up a r