Sandy Koufax
Page 34
“No,” he responded, politely, declining to take further advantage.
They chatted a while before he sent her home to her parents. Intact. And if he hadn’t been such a gentleman? “Are you kidding?” she said four decades later. “He’s Sandy Koufax!”
Every night, her father brought home the New York Post so that she could read about the former Brooklyn boy lighting up L.A. One evening, some years after the failed tryst, he neglected to bring his daughter the paper. It was New Year’s 1969. “He got married,” her father explained (no elaboration necessary), to Richard Widmark’s daughter.
Eileen Rogow, fifty-eight years old, hasn’t seen a Richard Widmark movie since.
Steve Swann, from Stewart, Florida, wrote about the son he wanted to name Koufax and how he was overruled by the boy’s vastly more sensible mother. (They settled on Cody Atticus instead, after the hero in the Harper Lee novel To Kill a Mockingbird.)
“Imagine being in Vero for the millionth time in your life,” Swann wrote. “But this year is different. You see Sandy Koufax gliding toward you; not looking away. Sandy is here so often, but you have always hung back; you’ve never been in the pack of people asking for an autograph. This time is different. This time your infant son is in your arms. Suddenly, and easily, he is in Sandy’s arms. No camera. But why would there be? You never bring a camera to Dodgertown. The kind eyes, the easy smile on Sandy Koufax’s face, are etched in my memory.
“Oh, you should know, I have a beautiful nine-week-old Labrador retriever. His name? Koufax. He will grow into that name and we will love him as we love Sandy: unconditionally.”
Steven Garten, a rabbi in Ottawa, Canada, told me about the gift he received from his former Los Angeles congregation in thanks for support given to a grieving family. “A seventeen-year-old child of a congregant had a massive stroke and in the ensuing days was found to have testicular cancer. I did what rabbis do. I spent time holding hands, crying, praying, and answering the unanswerable. The young man survived and grew up to be a rabbi.”
The congregation presented Garten with an autographed Sandy Koufax jersey and this note: “Pitching a perfect game is not a bad thing for a Jewish boy to do.”
People have shared memories and memorabilia: talismans brought for my inspection. A wedding picture with a 1966 Koufax baseball card fixed to the back. A snapshot of an old pair of socks, royal blue baseball stirrups actually, that may or may have been worn by Koufax. (Could I provide verification?) A scuffed baseball signed by every one of the 1955 World Champion Brooklyn Dodgers, including the unheralded rookie, Koufax. “See,” the owner said, pointing to the signature rendered nearly illegible by a childhood game of catch. I lied and said I did. (In April 2003, a similar ball was appraised on the cable TV program The Antiques Roadshow.)
A man from the Washington Hebrew Congregation shlepped a gigantic, archivally framed, gilt-edged photomontage to the synagogue to show me. In the photo (he’s the one on the left in the group of Philly fans surrounding their idol by the dugout at Connie Mack Stadium), Koufax looks vaguely terrified. And he had reason to be. A dwarf was holding on to his thigh, pinning him to the fence so the photograph could be taken.
Marcia Kramer, a colleague at the Washington Post, rummaged through a box in her basement and found her scorecard from the perfect game. She was sixteen years old, a Chicago White Sox fan, and Koufax devotee, listening to WGN’s broadcast from Los Angeles. She even charted the pitches, refusing to alter her position on the living-room couch for fear she would jinx her man. But, it wasn’t until she sent me the scorecard thirty-seven years after the fact that she realized she had neglected to record the final out.
Like a fingerprint, a scorecard is particular to a time and a place. A scorecard of a perfect game recorded in a perfect girlhood hand rekindles the synapse-depleting adrenaline of that long-ago night—and the belated zeal that caused her to forget Harvey Kuenn striking out to end the game. Similarly, a scuffed horsehide activates the past, making it tactile and, so, available. This is where memory resides.
“A ruin is the most persistent form of architecture,” my friend Howard Norman, the novelist, says. “And a scorecard is a kind of ruin, an organized form of nostalgia. It’s about a connection to an era, not to him.”
If I am a conduit to Koufax, he is a medium to another time: a time when the value of an autographed baseball was in using it, not amortizing it. When a nineteen-year-old girl could climb into the backseat of a limo without worrying about the consequences. When an eleven-year-old boy could get his hero on the telephone. “When the trajectory of ego didn’t override the trajectory of dignity,” as Norman put it.
There is one presumably interested party who hasn’t weighed in on the subject. “Did you ever speak to my friend Tony?” Koufax asked a couple of months after the book was published. (That’s when I knew for sure he hadn’t read it. People are shocked by this—How can you not read about yourself? I’d have been shocked if he had.)
“No!” I gasped. The man was terminally ill. I didn’t even know his name. It never occurred to me to call him.
“Too bad,” Koufax said. (Now he tells me.)
“Not because of what he would have said about me,” he said. “Because you would have liked him. He was the kind of guy who made you feel good just because he chose to be your friend.”
Koufax makes people feel the same way, even those who only dream of knowing him—or delude themselves into thinking they know him better than they do. Modern celebrity is a futures market. Formers, has-beens, and wannabes trade intimate details of their lives to ensure a future of public attention. Koufax, who will have nothing to do with this form of commerce, inspires an odd and paradoxical intimacy, odd because it isn’t reciprocal, paradoxical because it isn’t how he comports himself. A husband writes asking me to donate blood for his wife in Koufax’s name. A new young father recounts his father’s suicide and the premature birth of his triplets a year to the day later and sends a ball hoping Koufax will autograph it for his children, as if somehow his inked name can assuage an inheritance of hurt they do not yet know. These intimacies are suggestive not of tawdriness but of a craving for something unsullied. Which is why a pristine, white home Dodger jersey, 32, hangs in Steven Garten’s closet in Ottawa, unworn since Koufax last wore it. After all, the rabbi said, “Who could see themselves as Sandy Koufax?”
In January, I received a letter from a woman living in the Midwest, an educator who in a former life sang with an opera company performing in Cooperstown, New York. When faced with life’s dilemmas, she sought refuge by Koufax’s plaque in the Hall of Fame. “For some reason,” she wrote, “I could find clarity there.”
She had never seen Koufax pitch; had no idea what he looked like. But he was a childhood hero. “Shortly after the perfect game on September 9, 1965, my elementary school teacher asked us to write down three people we’d most like to meet and why. I diligently and without hesitation wrote down: 1. Sandy Koufax 2. Eleanor Roosevelt 3. Albert Einstein. I found the laminated version of my elementary school story while clearing out drawers after my father’s death thirteen years ago.
“It was a scant nine months after my mother had died, four months after my husband was killed in a drunk-driving accident. I was just thirty, and in a desperate effort to hold on to a piece of who I was, I recorded all of my conversations that last week with my father.
“We talked about life’s trials and making decisions (I had many to make quickly that year). He used the vocabulary that was most comfortable and meaningful to him. Every issue came down to, ‘What would Koufax do?’ We would laugh at this simple way of getting to what was ethical, what was right.
“Four months before my father’s death, in what was surely one of the blackest comedic moments of my life, I had been beside my husband, called to the hospital after the accident that took his life at thirty-four. Knowing me meant knowing the Koufax connection, and in one of our final shared moments, he whispered in my ear, ‘Don’t worry. I
f I don’t make it, I hear Koufax is still available.’”
Nearly forty years after he retired, Koufax has become a cultural tuning fork, establishing perfect pitch, a standard for how to behave.
Just ask Bob Hendley. One day last November, Hendley was a guest on an NPR show with me. I wanted him to tell the story about the ball Koufax had sent him. Instead he kept reiterating what an honor it was to get beaten by class. Afterward, he apologized and allowed how it would be nice finally to speak to the man with whom he shares September 9, 1965. A couple of days later, Hendley picked up the phone in his home in Macon, Georgia. It was Koufax calling to say hello, to see if life had been good after all.
They didn’t talk about the game.
Jane Leavy
May 2003
Appendix
INTERVIEWS WITH PLAYERS, COACHES, DODGERS EMPLOYEES, FANS AT DODGER STADIUM, SEPTEMBER 9, 1965
Gary Adams, spectator (later UCLA coach)
Red Adams, Dodgers coach
Joe Amalfitano, Cubs pinch hitter
Ed Bailey, Cubs reserve catcher
Ernie Banks, Cubs first baseman
Buzzie Bavasi, Dodgers general manager
Glenn Beckert, Cubs second baseman
Rich Brame, spectator
Byron Browne, Cubs left fielder
Bill Buhler, Dodgers trainer (deceased)
W. B. (Bliss) Carnochan, Dodgers fan listening on radio
Phil Collier, sportswriter, San Diego Union (deceased)
Tommy Davis, Dodgers outfielder
Bill DeLury, Dodgers front office
Jack Epstein, spectator
Jerry Epstein, spectator
Ron Fairly, Dodgers right fielder
Greg Figge, spectator
Russell Gilbert, Dodgers fan listening on radio
Preston Gomez, Dodgers coach
Bob Hendley, Cubs pitcher
Ken Holtzman, Cubs pitcher
Richard Hume, attorney for Koufax
Lou Johnson, Dodgers left fielder
Garry Jones, Dodgers fan listening on radio
Nobe Kawano, Dodgers clubhouse man
John Kennedy, Dodgers utility infielder
Kevin Kennedy, Dodgers fan listening on radio (later Dodgers coach)
Don Kessinger, Cubs shortstop
Marcia Kramer, Cubs fan listening on radio
Chris Krug, Cubs catcher
Jim “Frenchie” Lefebvre, Dodgers second baseman
Joe Moeller, Dodgers pitcher
Nate Oliver, Dodgers utility infielder
Claude Osteen, Dodgers pitcher
Danny Ozark, Dodgers coach
Wes Parker, Dodgers first baseman
Ron Perranoski, Dodgers relief pitcher
Barry Pinsky, spectator
Johnny Podres, Dodgers pitcher
Rich Procter, spectator
John Roseboro, Dodgers catcher (deceased)
Ron Santo, Cubs third baseman
Vin Scully, Dodgers broadcaster
Bill Singer, Dodgers pitcher
Dave Smith, Dodgers fan listening on radio
Steve Soboroff, spectator
Steve Stern, spectator
Jeff Torborg, Dodgers catcher
Dick Tracewski, Dodgers utility infielder
Ed Vargo, home plate umpire
Tom Villante, Dodgers broadcast coordinator
John Werhas, Dodgers utility infielder
Jess Whitehill Jr., spectator
Billy Williams, Cubs outfielder
Maury Wills, Dodgers shortstop
Zev Yaroslavsky, spectator
Sandy Koufax: Career Statistics*
Acknowledgments
I NEVER LIKED THE WORD ACKNOWLEDGMENTS mostly because I couldn’t spell it. Now that I can spell it, the word seems woefully inadequate to the task at hand. Writing is a collaborative act between author and subject, fact and imagination, scribe and supporters, friends, family, and colleagues, who are the flying buttresses to ambition. A simple thank you, while polite and pertinent, does not convey a sufficient degree of indebtedness. Really what these people are is contributors, and they ought to be credited as such. Here is my list.
Michelangelo had his David; I have three—Hirshey, Kindred, and Black, each an original, each deserving of his own pedestal. First among them is David Hirshey, better known to me as Dr. D. In 1978, David guided me across the threshold of my first professional locker room. Three years ago, when he broached the idea for this book, he swept me off my feet with his enthusiasm, confidence, and conviction. In so doing, he ushered me across another threshold and back to a place I didn’t know I had missed. My gratitude cannot be sufficiently measured, because it is endless. The Doctor is always in.
David Kindred, my former colleague at the Washington Post and abiding friend, offered succor and tolerance. Every writer needs someone to turn to in moments of abject neediness, when the mind and the screen go blank. Dave is that person. His good opinion means the world to me. I owe him big time.
David Black is not just my agent. He is the agent of this endeavor, having brought me together with HarperCollins. Fifteen years ago, give or take, David read my account of my parents’ first date at Loehmann’s in Brooklyn and called to offer his services. I had other representation at the time. “No problem,” he said. “I’ll wait.” And he did—first for my allegiance, then for me to produce. This is the fruition of his belief.
Gentle readers are not what any writer needs. A writer needs truth gently wielded. It’s no small job. I turned to four kind and uncompromising souls whose judgment is clearer and better than my own. Howard Norman brought to the manuscript a novelist’s acute sense of human drama and his own very idiosyncratic take on all things Jewish, forcing me to think outside the batter’s box. Carole Horn, editor and healer, kept me sane, kept me well, and kept me searching for a better word. George Vecsey, sports columnist for the New York Times and author of The Baseball Life of Sandy Koufax, a children’s biography published in 1968, offered unique and invaluable perspective. Dave Smith, my newest Dave, proprietor of Retrosheet, inundated me with his statistical generosity, access to Allan Roth’s scoresheets, and abiding enthusiasm for the subject.
Plundering memory is what reporters do. Those belonging to Joey Amalfitano, Bob Hendley, Jeff Torborg, and Dick Tracewski were formative in reconstructing the night of September 9, 1965. I could not have done this without them. The late Phil Collier, also there that night, was a source of unending information and moral support. Rabbi M. Bruce Lustig, senior rabbi at the Washington Hebrew Congregation, made sure I didn’t embarrass myself theologically. Mark Langill, publications editor for the Los Angeles Dodgers—my “rabbi” at Chavez Ravine—saved me with patience, humor, and archival knowledge of the home team. I am also indebted to Fred Wilpon and Don Fehr for their insight and entree. Amy Engelsman, PT, MS, SCS, physical therapist extraordinaire, massaged my aching back and the biomechanical sections of the manuscript with TLC. John Labombarda of the Elias Sports Bureau was my statistical backstop, ensuring there would be as few errors as possible in the delivery of this story. Samantha Medford, associate producer of ESPN’s Sports Century profile of Koufax, generously shared her research and her impressions. Sam Goldaper showed me his Brooklyn. Jason McCullough did months of legwork at the Library of Congress, tracking down game stories and box scores from long-forgotten contests. Charles Heller and his staff at Mail Boxes Etc. made sure that when it absolutely, positively had to get there, it did.
Behind every competent woman, there is another more competent one. Christine Maloney, indefatigable aide de camp, made it possible for me to do what I do by doing so much of what I was supposed to do. And playing backup—Fatima Tarrinha, without whom I could not function.
To friends and allies at HarperCollins: Jane Friedman, Carie Freimuth, Cathy Hemming, Susan Weinberg, Jeff Kellogg, Elliott Beard, David Koral, Aimery Dunlap-Smith, Tom Cherwin, Camillo LoGiudice, Nick Trautwein, Saara E. Liimatta, Heather Burke, and p.r. babes Tara B
rown and Leslie Cohen. At Black, Inc.: Gary Morris, Jason Sacher, and Leigh Anne Elisero. At the Hall of Fame: Tim Wiles, Greg Harris, Bill Burdick, Russell Wolinsky—I’m buying.
As of this writing, I have a few stalwart friends and relatives left who are still willing to hear about Sandy Koufax. Chief among them: Roberta Falke, Anita and Sheldon Isakoff, Harry Jaffe, Annette Leavy, Andy Levey, Dick and Caren Lobo, Liz Ohlrich, Wendy and Steven Phillips, Robert Pinsky, Jon Rupp, Norman Steinberg, Sid and Diana Tabak, Victoria Torchia, Ada Vaughn, and Hal and Marilyn Weiner. A special shout-out to my all-star girl group who carry me and the tune: Dede McClure, Florence Nightingale of the hard drive, who ministered to frayed nerves and disabled software at all hours of the morning and the night; Jane Shore, who made me laugh and think; and Nell Minow, who made me think and laugh; and my own dear Ms. H, who told me once a long time ago when I was least inclined to believe it that I was entitled to my own voice and thus helped me find it.
My father, Mort “The Sport” Leavy, taught me how to throw (not like a girl) and to love baseball. He also provides the best literary lawyering any daughter ever had. My mother, who used to hate baseball, has given up and now roots for the Mets.
Peter is, and always will be, my go-to guy. Nick and Emma are the heart of my order.
—Jane Leavy, May 2003
Searchable Terms
Aaron, Hank
Abramowitz, Burt (“Big Job”)
Abrams, Cal