Originally aired in 1999. This was the 30-minute version that aired as part of the SportsCentury countdown. Subsequent airings have been the one hour documentary version.
I'm 70 years old. I grew up a Cubs and Yankees fan. Koufax was in a class by himself; GREATEST pitcher I ever saw!!! THANK - YOU SANDY!!Great human being as well😎😀
I had the pleasure of watching Sandy pitch in person one time . It was in 1965 against the Giants at Candlestick Park. He beat the Giants 9-2. Watching him was poetry in motion. !!!!
My friend, Ken, and I were attending a San Antonio Dodgers (AA) game in the mid-'80s. We saw that Koufax was there (scouting pitchers). I had an in with the pitching coach, Brent Strom. We asked Brent if Mr. Koufax would sign our gloves. Brent took them to Sandy and he signed them! I still have mine, although you can barely read the signature. I will cherish it always.
I became a baseball fan at 9 10 yrs old and we lived in the san fernando valley.I was always a Giants fan.But, I loved Sandy Koufax....GREATEST PITCHER EVER
My hero growing up in Brooklyn in the 60's. Our house was a divided one with lots of violence, hatred, and abuse. Koufax would get me through the day, and all the beatings and name calling washed away when he pitched and won. Then he retired, and left me with a hole in my heart that has never healed. But thanks a million Sandy for helping me get through it at times. G-d Bless!..Maurice H
Nolan Ryan would get me through the days. Whats more...he filled that void for 4 decades, breaking record after record. IMO Sandy Koufax peaked out for 6 years & abandoned you. He was a quitter & now a recluse. According to this documentary he's still hiding, selfishly avoiding fans. But, Nolan Ryan has a baseball camp for kids...he continues to give. Its difficult for me to respect Sandy Koufax. Comparing Sandy Koufax to Nolan Ryan is like comparing a sneaky weasel to a heroic man. IMO off field behavior matters as much as on field.
Sandy Granule Your way over the top in criticizing a marvelous pitcher beloved by so many to this day. His arm was falling off. If he has chosen to be a recluse you can fault him for it, but calling him a weasel is going to far. I mean even Giant fans respect him! Perhaps your just a bit jealous Ryan doesn’t get as much publicity or has it taken away by a man who was dominating in post season. Your friend is not mentioned in that respect. Besides, Koufax was not a head hunter like your friend. Disappointed I am in the way Koufax handles himself, but would you say that about Willie Mays who runs away from fans unless you pay him? Or do you have a problem with people who celebrate Yom Kipper instead of Christmas? Your way over the top dude!....Maurice H
His record from 1961-66, six years, was 129-37. Era was 2.21. Struck out 1,910 hitters. Six time all star. 3 x Cy Young. 2 x WS MVP. 5 x MLB strikeout leader. 3 x MLB wins leader. 3 x pitching triple crown. Absolutely unbelievable.
My recollection of Koufax was he would always seem to be 0-2 or 1-2 ahead of the batters, tremendous control. Love the story of how that magic moment happened in spring training, the light bulb turned on and the rest was history.
"Sandy Koufax was the most dominant pitcher I ever saw. There were times I was that dominant, but not as consistent as him." - Nolan Ryan during the video interview and feature on Ryan by Roy Firestone
In 1965 the Twins had a great team but ran into the BEST left handed pitcher ever. He won games 5 and 7 pitching a 4 hitter and 3 hitter both shut outs. Game 7 on 2 days rest. The best I've seen !
On two days rest and with an elbow that hurt so bad that he couldn't throw a curveball for most of that game. He got the job done with just his fastball.
@@sandygranule358nolan Ryan had the most no-hitters. Yes, that part is true without a doubt. Ryan would have had a much better career if he had been more of a pitcher instead of a flat thrower. Nolan's fastballs were like no other. His curve ball was terrific. He simply could not control his pitches. His walk totals dwarfed those of Koufax.
Sandy Koufax and Bobby Orr, 2 massive stars whose star shined very bright for a relatively short period of time and injuries cost them many great years.
The GOAT. Period. And a very decent, disciplined individual. Only saw him on TV. Best overhand curve ball in the history of the game. Fastball is up there with the best as well.
Your crazy. Koufax had 3 great seasons like Ron guidry n denny McClain. Seaver had 6 great seasons, Bob feller had 6 great seasons walter Johnson had 12 great seasons and so on. Koufax only won 165 games that's not GOAT
@@danielshanetzky3714 You're entitled to your opinion and I respect it. But most baseball experts agree Koufax was the best. That includes hall of fame players like Willie Mays, Frank Robinson, and Willie Stargell. No need to call someone crazy. Let's keep the discussion respectful.
@@carymiller2403 numbers don't lie. Koufax had 3 twenty game win seasons. So did Ron guidry who is not in HOF. Walter Johnson had 12 twenty game seasons, Bob feller had 6 twenty game win seasons and he lost 4 seasons to world War 2. Tom seaver had 5 twenty games seasons, Steve Carlton had 6 twenty games win seasons etc etc. Koufax didn't even win 200 games only won 165 games in 12 seasons that's average about 12 games win. That is not GOAT. Let's be real here
@@danielshanetzky3714 You are in the minority. Look at the number of no-hitters, the perfect game, the era. For a six year period the most dominant pitcher in history. Now you might say 6 years doesn't qualify for the GOAT. Maybe. But Ron Guidry is no Sandy Koufax. And Koufax was the youngest player ever inducted into the hall of fame. Now please respond to the many other posters here who also say Koufax was the best. They deserve some of your attention as well as me
@@carymiller2403 I'll reply. What 6 years. He only had 3 Twenty win seasons. Bob feller had 6 twenty win seasons and 3 no hitters and he lost 4 full seasons in his prime. 3 seasons is not extradinary. Walter Johnson had 12 great seasons that extradnary. Tom seaver and Steve Carlton dominated the whole decade of the 1970s. Bob Gibson dominated the whole decade of the 1960s that's impressive. Koufax dominating 3 seasons is not impressive
Sandy was one of the best. He did pitch from a 14" mound. Gave his fast bass extra zip and his curveball more drop. The mound height was lowered to 10" in 1969 because the higher mound was giving too much advantage to the pitchers of the day.
As a lifelong Red Sox fan I always loved Koufax. The 1963 World Series against the Yankees mad me even a bigger fan. Punching out 15 Yankees still makes me smile.
When I was very young I got to see the tail end of Koufax's career as he pitched against the reds one time. Also got see Spahn pitch at the end of his career one time. THE TWO BEST LEFT-HANDED PITCHERS I EVER SAW. When Koufax was having a good day controlling his curve and breaking ball he was virtually unhittable with his fast ball to go with those two pitches. He could also throw a change of speeds pitch too. Wow. Just wow.
Thousands of us in that era became huge baseball fans because of sandy.. If the Dodgers were on TV and sandy was pitching...you were watching that game
Koufax is well before my time but watching him Pitch is Mastery itself I’ve only seen Some bits & Pieces of his Dominates. That said I still say he’s the greatest pitcher who has played this Beautiful game we call baseball yes I know about Nolan Pedro Roger Maddux Carlton & the list goes on but what I seen & studied is unprecedented! But I can truly say with out a doubt this Man his Greatness personified. Having it all the Awards the championships fame Etc & letting it go for the sake of his Mortality.. & not losing something that essential to his Being. I know this is a Old video but I’m glad I got to see it & I’ll be sure to tell children & other folks years from now his Dominance’s & Legacy💯🙏🏾 it will most definitely echo through the fabric of time..
I always remember my Brooklyn Natives friends, here in Boyle heights, Los Angeles in the 60's at Dodger Stadium. Just a Kid with my dad. Sandy koufax's Name, was like magical. The Greatest, without a doubt.
Koufax led the national League in ERA five years in a row - 1962-1966 - and his ERA for those five years was 1.95. Wow! No other pitcher ever led the league in ERA for five consecutive seasons. A real class act!
@@benmiddleton9984 I don't know how old you are but I remember when they were both pitching back in the 1960's. At that time, Koufax was the best pitcher in the major leagues, hands down. And he pitched for the Dodgers which meant he pitched in the World Series in 1963, 1965 and 1966, so the entire country watched him pitch on national TV. But he retired due to arthritis in his is left elbow in 1966, at the age of only 30 years. He had only 5 or 6 really great seasons because he hardly ever got to pitch with the Dodgers on a regular basis until he was around 25 years old. When he found his control, he was simply unstoppable. He had both the greatest curve ball and the best fastball in baseball. He was a power pitcher who set season strikeout records and he gave up very few walks. When he retired, he was still in his prime, in fact, his last season - 1966 - was perhaps his best season of all. Warren Spahn was undoubtedly one of the greatest pitchers who ever lived. He did not win his first game in the majors until he was 25 years old. Then he went on to win 20 games in 13 of the next 17 seasons, an unbelievable achievement especially considering that the season was only 154 games in those days and that he pitched for the Braves, not one of the best teams around. He pitched in three World Series - 1948, 1957, 1958 - but he did not play in a big media capital like New York or Los Angeles and that may explain why he did not get the sort of national attention that Koufax received.
@@syourke3 Warren Spahn led the NL in complete games six or seven years after he turned 35. Ponder that. The reason his career started late was WWII, during which he was wounded and received a battlefield commission. I met Mr. Spahn at Cooperstown in 1974. Wonderful, modest, self-effacing gentleman!
One batter I knew told me that when he first went up against Koufax, he was mesmerized by his legendary windup, so perfectly beautiful that no one else could even imitate it, then the way he released the ball and how it looked coming at him, almost like a dream in slow motion, that he forgot to swing, not that it would have done much good. I know what he means. Nobody, and I mean nobody could match his form, the control he had over the baseball or the elusive wickedness of the pitch as the ball flew over the plate right where he had intended it to go. As a youthful pitcher myself at one point, I did pretty well, but nothing like him in any sense of the word, save for determination. He was my mentor without even knowing it. I learned how to pitch by watching him do it, and as an old man, I can still do it today, right down the old tube, and much faster than I did as a kid. I owe that at least in part, to having had the privilege of watching the best pitcher ever to play the game.
His wind up looks off balance & chaotic, almost comically exaggerated. Anyone who can displace that awkward crazy wind up with "mesmerizing" & "beautiful" has an inventive mind.
@@sandygranule358 The only problem with his form was the follow-through. It wasn't there and I suspect that's what finally gave him arm trouble. As for the rest, you're by yourself in your opinion, which of course you're welcome to.
Like the Beatles, Koufax blazed a brief but incandescent trail across the sports/musical/cultural/sociological sky. As Garigiola said, he was a meteor.
My Mick. My idol. My hero. And what a giant of a human being to stand up to tell kids don’t be stupid like me Who does this today ??? NOBODY. but my mick did like he always did and he came thru for the team in the end when it’s needed the most. RIP MICK growing up as a kid would not have been the same without you
I saw him in Ellsworth, Maine in a pottery store in the 90s - he never said a word to anyone; looked around for 10 minutes, seemed quite at ease, and left quietly into oblivion.
I’m tempted to downvote this because it’s impossible to hear with any outside noise. But it’s about Sandy, so I’ll watch it again at 2 am so I can actually hear it! God Bless Sandy Kofax!!
"Arthritis" is what they thought then. These days, it is suspected that he suffered a UCL tear. Tommy John surgery was 15 years into the future. But still, I wonder what would have happened if Sandy had taken a year off and came back.
Recall seeing him pitch at a sold out Sportsman Park in St Louis, one night in August, 1965 , and the large throng of fans standing behind home plate - don't think they allow that anymore.
Even his teammates in Brooklyn exaggerate how bad he was in his early years. He pitched two complete game shutouts in his rookie year, back to back starts late in the season. You can't do that if you can't throw the ball within the batting cage, let alone over the plate. (And Duke Snider is my favorite player, but he's exaggerating when he says stuff like that.) He struck out 18 batters in a game twice: the first one was in 1959, before the six year window of dominance that everyone was talking about. A little over a month later, he came very close to winning the clinching game of the World Series. He started Game 5 and gave up only one run in 7 innings, a run that scored when Sherm Lollar grounded into a double play. But the Dodgers were shutout that game and lost 1-0. So he had flashes of brilliance in his first six years. The Dodgers only had to keep him on the major league roster in 1955 and 1956. There was a reason why they never sent him down to the minors. He was voted their most improved player in 1957. He struck out over 1 batter per inning that year. And he was slowly improving each year, although the disappointments when he failed still stood out for someone with his ability. Koufax has admitted that in addition to needing to relax on the mound, the other thing that he changed before the 1961 season was to get his legs in better shape. One of the reasons for his inconsistency in his first six years was that he didn't have the stamina to pitch every fourth day in the starting rotation. A pitcher's ability comes from their arms and upper body, but their stamina comes from the legs. The other thing that affected him in his early years was how the Dodgers managed him. Because he was a bonus baby without minor league experience, the Dodgers looked at his poor performances as an indication that he wasn't ready yet. OTOH, the Yankees had a very good pitcher during the same years who had come up through the minor leagues. His name was Bob Turley. He won the Cy Young Award in 1958. He also had a really good fastball and inconsistent control. He led the AL in walks three times, including the year he won the Cy Young. Casey Stengel used to say that he could tell within one inning if Turley had it or not. If not, he would take him out right away. Then he start him again two days later. Usually he had it again. Turley also developed elbow problems, but they were bone chips, not arthritis. It was more difficult for him to pitch through it and his career declined quickly after 1958 although he continued to pitch until 1963.
It took him like 6 or 7 years to figure out to relax a bit when pitching and that a pitcher needs to workout their legs too. He sure could pitch (eventually) but seems a bit lacking in the common sense department. Did they not have pitching coaches in those days?
@@unkledoda420 Yes, there were pitching coaches back then. The Dodgers pitching coach when Koufax broke in to the big leagues was Joe Becker. He would be the Dodger pitching coach for all but the last two years of Sandy's career. It was the first year that he served as a pitching coach, but it would be his role for the rest of his baseball career. He left the Dodgers for two years with the Cardinals and then finished his career with the Cubs until a heart ailment sidelined him during the 1970 season. Previously, Becker had been a minor league manager at the AAA level (from 1946-54). Prior to his tour of duty in the military during WWII, he was a catcher, including a brief stint in the majors with Cleveland. The fact that he was a catcher, not a pitcher, doesn't make him any less capable as a pitching coach. Some of the best pitching coaches were catchers during their playing careers (e.g. Rube Walker). And it was a catcher, Norm Sherry, who convinced Sandy to take it down a notch during spring training in 1961 that helped him become a consistently dominant pitcher.
I remember as a kid kofax vs whitey ford.W S. Lefty like Iam Kofax had perfect mechanics he was one of the best during a time when pitchers ruled,Drysdale ,Gibson, spaun first luv baseball.His arm was hurting thats why he retired they were shooting him with steroids midde of innings back then a pitcher went the whole game
Incredible man and obviously one of (if not THE) best to ever do it... it's a toss-up for me between him and someone Sutton didn't mention in prime Pedro Martinez
With Koufax his silence was his sling. Watching him was like watching Bernstein at the met conduct Beethoven or something Russian?? I mean Sandy was smooth as silk. He’d slide that ball like nothing. I’m not big on hitters. They’re entertaining like Ruth and mantle but a pitchers pitcher is like conducting an orchestra. That was Koufax. Smooth. Silk.
Great as Koufax was, Bob Uecker hit .400 off of him. Dead serious. Look it up. No disrespect intended. Koufax is one of my favorite human beings of all time. It just shows what a wonderful game baseball is when one of the worst hitters can find such success against such a great pitcher.
studogable He has a problem with him because he gets more respect and publicity than his head hunting idol Nolan Ryan..Maurice H PS-He attacks him mercilessly! But obviously, he is a very very small minority. He pitched in LA not NY.
He was so horrible at first he was ready to retire, imagine. There's another of his cohorts that went right along with him, just a terrible start to his career. He became the monster that won with his team in the years the Dodgers didn't, during the 1960s. Gibson. Too bad they never faced each other during that miraculous era. All Gibby did was throw a 1.12 ERA in 1968, after the Cardinals won it all in 67. In 1969 they lowered the pitching mound from 15 inches to 10 because of that My two favorite pitchers of all time. As a young Cardinal fan in the late 60s, i saw Gibby pitch many times at Busch Stadium. But never Koufax. My loss.
OK, so it is agreed by all that Sandy was the Greatest Pitcher of the modern time in all of Baseball, so why only #42! If you look at his record from 1961 to 1966, you will not find any pitcher to equal him! I just think he deserves a much higher rating than this!
Not everyone thinks he's the GOAT. Longevity and not taking like 7 years to figure out how to pitch consistently count for something in my book. Besides, I can think of a handful more recent pitchers who may have put up similar numbers had they got to throw off that taller pitcher's mound.
The real reason he quit so early: if he didn't quit while in his prime he'd just be another good to great pitcher, nobody would be calling him the goat
Abraham Salazar did Ryan win WS by himself like Koufax? Perfect games and cute young? Koufax is greater than Ryan! Even Ryan would agree if you’d ask. My thoughts. Go Dodgers!
im a Koufax fan, he was the best pitcher ever,I remember a radio game back then, the play by play, guy saidwhen u have a set of games with the dodgers, u can on losing1 of em to koufax
A lifetime era of 2.76 which ranks 96th on the all time list doesn't sound so great to me. It's not like he was untouchable. He lost 87 games or 35% of the time. Please!
0.95 ERA in 8 WS games. No one is close. His record in WS was 4-3 due to a lack of support. Same for many of the games he lost. Led the majors in wins, strikeouts and ERA in 63, 65, 66. Best pitcher I've ever seen.
Jimbo Chirico Koufax pitcher game 7 in 1965 on two days rest. He also pitched the pennant clincher in 1966 on two days rest! Willie Davis committed 3 errors in the 1966 World Series(last game he ever pitched.
If Koufax would have been a decent pitcher in 1956 maybe brooklyn dodgers would have stayed in Brooklyn instead of deserting in 1957 because of that hog O'Malley. Koufax dropped the ball for brooklyn dodgers in 1956 n195⁷
Koufax isn't good enough to carry Warren spahn's jockstrap. Only reason Sandy is as popular as he is is because he played in Los Angeles. Warren Spahn doesn't nearly get the credit that he deserves because he played in Milwaukee and it's sad. It's the same bias when it comes to Stan Musial. If Stan the Man played his baseball Years in New York he would be Lou Gehrig.
