By Bill Simons

During the winter of 1960-61, 11-year-old me discovered a passion for reading about baseball. I played Little League, sandlot and backyard baseball; followed the Boston Red Sox on radio and TV and occasionally at Fenway Park; and traded baseball cards. Reading about the game added another layer. I scoured baseball publications looking for a current Jewish baseball star to rival the epic hero of my father’s youth, Detroit Tiger slugger Hank Greenberg. I chose Sandy Koufax as my standard bearer, discounting naysayers who designated him more squandered potential than realized performance.
After six seasons (1955-60) pitching for the Dodgers, first in his native Brooklyn and then in Los Angeles, the 25-year-old Koufax had mediocre career statistics. His 40 defeats outnumbered a meager 36 victories, testament to a dismal .474 winning percentage and disturbing 4.10 ERA. Things were not getting any better on the diamond. In 1960, Koufax won only eight games against 13 losses. 
Based on scattered flashes of brilliance, I told my father and anyone else who would listen that greatness on the mound lay just ahead for Koufax. I pointed to his 2-hit, 14-strikeout, shutout of the mighty Cincinnati Reds in 1955 at age 19; tying Bob Feller’s MLB record 18 strikeouts against Willie Mays’ San Francisco Giants in 1959; and his 1960 NL second place in KOs (197). Despite the retort that the Koufax fastball couldn’t trump wildness and inconsistency, I wanted to believe that he was about to become my generation’s Greenberg. 
And I was right. In 1961, Koufax won 18 games and recorded 269 strikeouts, breaking Christy Mathewson’s 1903 NL record. And, thanks to my Uncle Ben, I was there when Koufax made his only appearance at Fenway Park, holding the AL scoreless in the fifth and sixth innings of a 1961 All-Star Game. Late at night, I listened to Koufax pitch West Coast ball games on my shortwave radio. Defanging jibs as to why I wanted to be the Jewish team during our gang’s improvised ethnic whiffleball tournaments, I retorted so Koufax could pitch for us.  
With number 32 Dodger blue inscribed on the uniform draping his broad back, Koufax’ windup featured muscular calf high in the air and long pitching arm descending almost to his ankle. At his 1962-66 peak, Koufax was arguably the best pitcher in baseball history. Despite missing parts of 1962 and 1964 due to injuries, he won five consecutive ERA titles with figures that look like typos (2.54. 1.88, 1.74, 2.04.1.73); compiled a 111-34 won-loss record; garnered an MVP and three Cy Young Awards (when MLB awarded only one); notched a then unequaled fourth no-hitter, plus a perfect game; set a single season strikeout record (382); struck out 18 batters in a game for a second time; and recorded an astounding 0.95 World Series ERA. 
Armed with a lightning fastball, dropping “twelve-to-six curveball,” and hard-won control precision thanks to tutelage from Jewish backup catcher Norm Sherry, Koufax made MLB batters look like Little Leaguers. Watching Koufax pitch and reflecting on the lefty’s 1963 25-5 record, Yogi Berra confessed, “I don’t understand how he lost five.” Given to more picaresque language, Mickey Mantle, after striking out against Koufax, exclaimed, “How the $#*! is anybody supposed to hit that $#*!?” When asked to name the best pitcher he ever saw, Casey Stengel, intermittently a managerial genius, once responded “that Jewish kid.” To add comparative perspective, Clayton Kershaw, the second-best pitcher in Dodgers history, completed 25 games over 18 seasons; Koufax raked up 54 just in his two final seasons. Kershaw had 15 career shutouts; in 1963 alone, Koufax chalked up 11. 
Termed the Left Arm of God, that left arm was paradoxically Koufax’s Achilles heel. To unfurl powerful torque from the mound despite a left elbow afflicted by excruciating and worsening arthritis, he underwent blistering heat treatments, freezing water immersion, injections, pills that carried harmful side effects without fully numbing the hurt nor the advancing deformity of the arm, evidenced by loss of full extension and bone length. Facing crippling disfunction of the arm, Koufax, age 30, retired from MLB in 1966 at the height of his pitching prowess. At 36, he became the youngest Baseball Hall of Fame inductee
For Jews of a certain age, Koufax remains legend.  His sheer athletic excellence negated the Woody Allen nebbish stereotype. Koufax evokes a time when America and the world were becoming better places for Jews. Along with holding Eichmann accountable, victory in the Six-Day War and the emergence of Barbra Streisand, Koufax epitomized the coming of age of a confident, post-Holocaust generation of American Jews. 
On October 6, 1965, the Koufax saga entered Jewish mythology. He honored Yom Kippur by declining to pitch Game One of the World Series against the Minnesota Twins, resulting in Los Angeles losing. Minnesota native Dr. Rich Cohen remembers “on YK 1965, every synagogue in the Twin Cities reported having seen Sandy at services – an urban myth but a good one” that Koufax, who remained in his hotel room, never disputed. Although fielding errors and a lack of support led to Koufax losing Game 2, the Dodger ace came back to shut out the Twins in Game 5, yielding but 4 hits and 1 walk while striking out 10. Remarkably, in Game 7 on only two days’ rest, Koufax repeated his 10 KO shut-out performance, this time surrendering but three hits, sealing the Dodgers World Series championship. Psychology Professor Steve Lisman recalls, “The Koufax decision resonated mightily in our household.” My cousin Robert still sees “my mom pointing to the TV to tell me that’s how to be a good Jew.”
And the 1966 Koufax-Don Drysdale holdout for fair compensation exemplifies our social justice mitzvah. Barney Horowitz, formerly of the National Labor Relations Board, calls it “a courageous act… a challenge to the notorious reserve clause and the owners’ take it or leave it negotiating stance.” It provided a benchmark on the way to player unionization. 
Following a few years as a baseball sportscaster, Koufax has led a private life. His seasons as a Dodger minor league and spring training coach were done, at his bequest, without fanfare. Koufax’s rare appearances on the big stage, as when Dodgers dedicated a statue in his honor or had him throw out a ceremonial first pitch, were special and done with class. When Koufax, trim and fit, appeared at the 2025 Hall of Fame ceremonies, he looked like a contemporary of the decades-younger new inductees. Koufax sat through the 18-inning Game 3 of this year’s World Series. As Los Angeles was running out of pitchers, imagination envisioned the last of The Boys of Summer going out to the bullpen to warm up. 
Sandy turns 90 on December 30. From Israel, David Nachenberg speaks for many of us: “May he have a happy birthday, and may he live to (at least) 120 in happiness and health.”