Rating: 
Summary: Koufax: A Symbol of Greatness on and off The Diamond
Review: Despite Sandy Koufax's athletic prowess as a youngster growing up in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn he never anticipated becoming what he seemed naturally destined to do - pitch a baseball with phenomenal results in the major leagues. During Koufax's early years he was drawn to basketball and was playing the hoop sport at Cincinnati University when major league franchises became aware of his natural skills in throwing a baseball.
Koufax ultimately signed to play for the home team, the Brooklyn Dodgers, but before he could find his stride the team had moved three thousand miles west to Los Angeles. Sandy was a victim of his time in signing a bonus contract. Rules obligated clubs to make room on their rosters for youngsters, creating resentment from established players and lacking the opportunity to develop provided to others in the minor leagues.
The young lefty would have preferred beginning in the minors. Instead he had a long, hard climb before breaking into the Dodger rotation. Years later he would ask former Dodger general manager Buzzie Bavasi why he was not used sooner on a regular basis. He never could get over those early years of feeling management did not want him.
As typical of a southpaw with blazing speed, Koufax was plagued by wildness. When he was able to overcome it he carried pitching to new heights. Former Yankee manager Casey Stengel, a veteran judge of talent and by then skipper of the New York Mets, said, "The Jewish kid is better than Walter Johnson."
Washington Post sportswriter Jane Leavy captures Koufax and his times by interviewing scores of those who knew him from his Bensonhurst days to the present. She keeps two interesting narratives flowing in her text, alternating between the Koufax biography and an exceptionally detailed, fascinating account of the September 9, 1965 perfect game Koufax pitched at Dodger Stadium against opposing hurler Bob Hendley and the Chicago Cubs. The game was doubly fascinating in that it came close to being a double no hitter in that Hendley gave up only a scratch blooper single to Dodger outfielder Lou Johnson, who had earlier scored the game's only run. The run occurred after Johnson had walked, been bunted to second, stolen third and run home following a throwing error by Cubs' rookie catcher Chris Krug.
To Koufax and those who followed him, the breaks he received to enable him to win his perfect game in a regulation nine innings were payback. In his initial World Series start in game five in Los Angeles of the 1959 match up with another Chicago team, the White Sox, Koufax performed brilliantly in a pitcher's duel with Bob Shaw in which the game's only run was scored by Nellie Fox while the Dodgers executed a double play.
As someone who had a rare gift of throwing a baseball at tremendous speeds and velocity a Catch-22 resulted. The act of repeatedly engaging in such a physically unnatural feat resulted in debilitating injury.
At the peak of his career teammates could barely stand to look at Koufax's grotesquely swollen left arm following a game. He quit at the end of the 1966 season, realizing he would never be able to use his left arm eventually and would be in acute pain regularly if he did not hang up his cleats. He racked up Hall of Fame statistics and was able to retire at the youthful age of 30. When most players quit it is after their peak skills have sharply eroded. Despite enduring increasing pain Koufax's final year was his best as he chalked up a career high of 27 wins against 9 losses wth a sparkling 1.73 earned run average.
Author Leavy provides sharp insight into a joint act engaged in with the Dodgers' top right-handed starter Don Drysdale that changed Major League Baseball permanently. Up until 1966 team owners held a commanding advantage over players. After Roger Maris, broke Babe Ruth's home run record with 61 round trippers in 1961, he sought to bring his businessman brother to Yankee Stadium to help negotiate the following year's contract. The Yankees declined to allow him to sit in on the meeting.
In the cases of Koufax and Drysdale, General Manager Bavasi and the top Dodger brass previously used psychology to play the star pitchers off against each other. If Koufax walked into a negotiating session and a contract was mentioned with opposition, Bavasi would respond, "That's funny because Drysdale said he would accept that amount." He would do the same when Drysdale appeared for a contract discussion.
Drysdale's wife Ginger posed the suggestion that the players jointly negotiate their 1966 contracts. They decided to negotiate as a team, and as holdouts had to convince management that they were willing if necessary to abandon their careers. At one point they both signed to appear as actors in the suspense film "Warning Shot" starring David Janssen. Before shooting started, however, management saw the light. After all, it was a proven fact that more fans materialized when they pitched. It was said that Koufax drew an extra 10,000 customers when he took the mound as a starter.
The daring Koufax-Drysdale negotiating ploy was the first major step in what would result in the creation of a Players Association headed by lawyer Marvin Miller. Koufax and Drysdale would accordingly be classified as labor heroes whose efforts assisted those players who followed them into the major leagues.
Rating: 
Summary: I didn't Like It
Review: I don't care for the author's writing style -- a sort of smug hipness. I also got the sense that the author is overly playing the Jewish angle on this story; she cares more about his being Jewish than he does. I had to stop reading about halfway through.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Writing, great legacy
Review: I have read a great many baseball books over the years and usually don't have a particularly high hope for the writing of most biographies, especially when the subject is still alive. Either the writing comes off as trying to impress too hard or the writer is trying to make his or her reputation off the subject. That is not true in this case. Ms. Leavy is a wonderful writer and she works hard to create an honest portrait of one of the all time great pitchers, Sandy Koufax. The style of the book, intersecting his perfect game with his life will delight baseball and non-baseball fans alike. Her discussion of Koufax and his faith is thought provoking and well developed. She also provides a glimpse into the 1950's in Brooklyn that is terrific. This book certainly ranks as one of the finest baseball related books to be published in some time, and unlike the Cubs who were silenced by Koufax on that great night in 1965, this book contains plenty of hits. Read it- give it as a gift. This is a winner.
Rating:
Summary: Thorough, but respectfully keeps his privacy intact
Review: It's never easy to write a thorough biography when your subject is an uncooperative recluse, but Jane Leavy does an excellent job nonetheless. Speaking with hundreds of friends and former teammates, she is able to weave a beautiful tapestry of one man's unforgettable career.Each chapter, cleverly alternating with a play-by-play account of his perfect game, paints a wonderfully realistic portrait of Koufax's ascent from a wild southpaw to one of baseball's greatest pitchers. The tale of this reluctant hero is set against the times in which he played, and this book is as much a history of baseball during the 50s and the tumultuous 60s as it is about Koufax's accomplishments. More so, Leavy succeeds at explaining this personality, this cult icon who has been a mystery to sportswriters and fans (and even his friends and teammates!) for over 50 years. While she respects his privacy and doesn't venture anywhere near his personal life (practically nothing is written about his marriages or family, and the longtime rumors surrounding his sexual orientation is respectfully never brought up), after reading this book, you get the strong sense that you understand him better. Or at least, you can appreciate better the pain he went through-both emotionally as an outsider in a very public arena who longed for normalcy when expected to be a legend, and physically as he forced his body to the uttermost limits. I would be lying if I said I didn't hope for more juicy tidbits. Maybe it's our tabloid/Hollywood Access culture, or our inexplicable sense of entitlement, but deep down we want to learn every little personal detail of our celebrities. Leavy, in a rare act of decency and self-restraint largely unknown to journalists, doesn't bow to our greedy desires and offers up only a classy, professional tribute to one of our classiest, most professional figures. For that reason, her book will feel incomplete to many, but for real fans of Sandy, a biography that preserves his mystery is the most honorable biography that he deserves.
Rating:
Summary: Fine social biography of a good man
Review: Jane Leavy had a daunting task -- writing a biography of a living ex-ballplayer who would not let her interview him. Sandy Koufax is famous for many things including: (1) pitching ability -- including one of the best 4-5 year stretches in baseball history; (2) retirement at a young age [30] to prevent additional damage to his already debilitated arm, which led to induction in the Hall of Fame at 35 (the youngest inductee ever); (3) his refusal to pitch game 1 of the 1965 World Series because it took place on Yom Kippur; (4) winning game 7 of the '65 Series in a three-hit shutout on two days' rest with only his fastball; (5) his reputation as the sporting world's reclusive equivalent of Greta Garbo or J.D. Salinger.
Leavy approached this book the right way -- she did a great deal of research, interviewed his former teammates and contemporaries, interviewed the players who have met and learned from him since his retirement and researched his background. Moreover, this is not a straight biography because Koufax is so intensely private despite his larger place in baseball history -- a Jewish icon, a superstar who struggled for the first 6-7 years of his career, a minority white who helped bridge the racial divide in the first decade-plus after baseball's racial integration, a reluctant labor leader who held out for more money during the players-as-chattel era when players were bound to their teams and could not become free agents. Leavy is able to show Koufax's integrity, professionalism, work ethic and honesty through the numerous Koufax contemporaries she interviewed.
Leavy's work is highly readable and innovatively structured: the chapters detailing Koufax's life are separated by three-four page interlude chapters recalling, inning-by-inning, Koufax's perfect game against the Cubs in 1965 (his 4th no-hitter and the 4th-straight season in which he pitched a no-hitter). Leavy is a sportswriter and some of the stylistic quirks in her writing are annoying, but inconsequential (quote attribution can be confusing, sliding from direct quotes to non-quoted vernacular) traits that many sportswriters have. She also soft-pedals the anti-Semitism of Walter Alston, Koufax's manager, that both ESPN's and Sports Illustrated's Koufax retrospectives detailed.
All told, this is a fine book that places Koufax in perspective of his sports era, his religion, and the culture of the country as baseball expanded during the transition from the 1950s to the 1960s.
Rating:
Summary: Very good book - not just for baseball people
Review: Jane Leavy has constructed a nice book that manages to transcend the world of sports and give context to a man who is mythical for many things, some of which include baseball. Since I was born after Koufax ended his career, all that I have heard about the Dodgers pitcher was in the context of the man's greatness. I had heard how he just quit at the top of the game for no apparent reason. I had heard that he was a hero to Jewish people, but I could't understand why exactly(just because he was Jewish?). He is a storied Dodger in the midst of so many other gifted players in that storied franchise. Koufax was a mysterious person , an aptly named shooting star across the baseball pantheon. In reality, like every other sports star, Koufax played until he couldn't function anymore. His arm was giving out. His decision to retire at 30 from the Dodgers, after a run of six incredible years, was forced upon him. Koufax was a Jewish kid from Brooklyn who played for the Dodgers in Brooklyn and Los Angeles. Leavy is wonderful in explaining why he is so revered as a figure of Jewish acceptance in America. It is not because he was Jewish, but because helped in making being Jewish a more regular part of American life. Obviously being Jewish in the period when Koufax grew up was a very different time in America (read anti-Semitic). Public discrmination against certain people was not only accepeted, but almost a birthright in some quarters. Koufax helped break down (in his own small way) some barriers by playing baseball -well. Koufax famously didn't pitch on Yom Kippur in 1965 at the start of the World Series. The Jewish high holy days were being acknowleged by a leading sports star. In the context Leavy provides, I was able to understand why this was important to the Jewish identity in America. I was able to understand how a seemingly small act of selfishlessness became a symbol for the Jewish disapora in America to feel that in a small way it was being acknowledged as part of the American tableau (rightly so!). The book is not so much a sports biography, but rather a reflection of the times Sandy Koufax inhabited, and his meaning to baseball, and to larger issues as well. Interestingly, Koufax was not a great pitcher at that start of his career. Rather, he grew to greatness after being in the league for a while (six plus years), and rose to heights never before (or rarely scaled). For example, he was the only pitcher to pitch four no-hitters in four consecutive seasons.
He had great individual statistics, but he was a great team player. He won multiple championships. He pitched through pain. However, Leavey provides a way to see Koufax as a symbol to Jewish people in effect. He grew up in Brooklyn. In mid-century America, it was a heavily Jewish enclave, with many recent Jewish dispora located there. Like many Americans would in mid-century America, he moved to the West Coast when the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles. Los Angeles became a center of the Jewish disapora. Sandy Koufax was a symbol of the movement west. He became more accepted for what he accomplished rather than being known solely for his religious and community beliefs. His experience became more accepted, rather than scorned. In this way, Leavy helped me to understand Koufax and his times. I though her use of Don Drysdale as a counterpoint in explaining Koufax was brilliant. Drysdale represented everything Koufax was not. Again, Leavy provides great context to the Koufax story. If you are looking for a more traditional sports biography, this is not your book. Koufax doesn't discuss how he felt about this game or that pitch (at least not in the excrutiating detail that I find boring in most sports biographies). As I mentioned, it is more of a book about a symbol ( the subtitle is "A lefty's legacy). Do I understand Koufax? Not really, but I think I understand why so many people revere him. He conducted himself with a rarely seen comportment. He was 'class.' No, I don't think Koufax is a perfect person. I get the sense that Leavy lefty out details wherein the reader may get the idea Koufax was sometimes a jerk, or self-absorbed. But, who cares, I do understand the overall charecter of the man, the myth and the legend. In each case, Koufax is certainly interesting, Koufax attained greatness, and he was one hell of a pitcher for six magical years. If a book can make me understand these things about its subject, then I think the author has done her job. If you have the slightest interest in Koufax, you won't be disappointed in reading this book.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic "sociological" biography...
Review: Jane Leavy has really transcended sports biography with this outstanding account of baseball great Sandy Koufax. Framed in a "between innings" format, the reader gets Koufax's career discussed in parallel with his monumental September, 1965 perfect game against the Chicago Cubs. At the same time, we get a sort of "social" history of the times (mid 1960's) that adds depth and immediacy to this story thats lacking in other more celebrated biographies. From early childhood to his still current adulation, Leavy attempts to myth-alize and at the same time de-myth the Koufax icon...all the time with minimal cooperation from the subject. And even with this roadblock, she has achieved a major success! With the advantage of hundreds of interviews of Koufax intimates, she has managed to succeed in portraying the "real" Koufax where many before her have failed. His legendary career is celebrated at the same time his legendary "aloofness" is picked apart, showing that Koufax ultimately achieves what he always wanted to be be: a regular guy. There is no shortage of baseball talk here though...we hear Koufax explaining the mechanics of pitching in almost doctoral detail; why these mechanics ruined his pitching elbow and ultimately led to his early retirement. We get numerous funny and informative anecdotes from the afore-mentioned interviews, as well as some darned good game coverage...Leavy obviously was (is) an excellent sports writer and her passion for the game and the subject are obvious. The undeniable thread throughout this work, however, is the decency and "down to Earth" manner in which Koufax carried himself throughout his career. Whether it was his practice of hanging out with his "lesser" teammates (as opposed to Don Drysdale, who comes across as sort of "star-seeking") or refusing to pitch on the opening game of the 1965 World Series (which occured on Yom Kippur), Koufax's humility and class are ever-present in the narrative and gives the reader that fleeting "personal" side that has been missing from many other descriptions of Koufax's career. The social climate of the mid-to-late 1960's is interspersed with the games and gives a perspective and context that's not normally found in most sports biographies...it's this feature of the book and Koufax's personal makeup that make this book so appealing. Whether looking for a sports biography or a discussion of how sports fit into the late 60's culture, "Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy" is an excellent source. Extremely readable and highly entertaining, this book should be considered a watershed in these subjects as well as a definitive account of Sandy Koufax's career and I recommend it very highly.
Rating:
Summary: Readable but not much more
Review: So there really isn't much mystery about Sandy Koufax. Shortly after he retired he married twice, each marriage being relatively long lasting, and he led a quiet life. He attended various baseball ceremonies, raised some money for charities, and coached a bit. Leavey demolishes the "recluse" nonsense. She also sets out clearly why Sandy had to retire early. He like other starting pitchers of his era were exploited by their teams. Throwing fastballs for nine or more innings per game game after game would have ruined anyone's arm. Baseball had not yet appreciated the middle reliever and the closer. Had Sandy pitched 6 or 7 innings per game, his career would have lasted another 5 years easily. I have to admire his and Drysdale's work ethic though. The book recalls the late 50's and early 60's well and makes you realize how much society and baseball has changed. It is a fun book to read.
Rating:
Summary: A Legend in his Time
Review: The big wide world of sports has produced an elusive array of legends that have spanned generations. For the late 1950s and 1960s, there was Sandy Koufax and his golden arm at pitching. He may very well have been considered one of the last of this era in baseball history. Besides his looks and his demeanor, his fellow teammates often called him "the game's Cary Grant and Fred Astaire and compaired him to the Mona Lisa and David...He looked like Michaelangelo," Ernie Banks said. "Pitching, walking, whatever he did was kind of a rhythm with life, stylish" (2).
Jane Leavy takes a compassionate approach in delving into the life of Sandy Koufax in SANDY KOUFAX: A LEFTY'S LEGACY. This is not one of those "digging up the dish" biographies, but one that shows much respect to the player as well as the individual. Leavy's accounts are authentic and well documented with the many interviews she made with people that played with Koufax as well as the name dropping of fans that idolized him. There may still be unanswered questions pertaining to Koufax's personal life, but for the most part, Leavy concentrates on what made Koufax a legend, a man who was dedicated to the game of baseball.
A LEFTY'S LEGACY is definitive for its content. However, there is a little side stepping when Leavy attempts to write a social commentary of the 1960s in which Koufax worked and played in. It was helpful to reference, but it seemed out of place in particular chapters. One can say Koufax may have fell under the same category of the "Camelot Years."
Nontheless, SANDY KOUFAX: A LEFTY'S LEGACY is a must read biography about the life of Sandy Koufax. You do not necessarily have to be a baseball fan, but he is one of many personalities that made the 1960s for what it was. It also makes one wonder and ask, are there any legends anymore?
Rating:
Summary: If Only Leo Mazzoni Had Been Around in 1955
Review: The Koufax story, as we remember it, and as author Jane Leavy depicts it, has some of the trappings of a medieval morality play. A 1954 Brooklyn boy improbably becomes a "bonus baby" with his hometown Dodgers. So wild and unpredictable a hurler, his manager dreaded to use him. He labors six years but never loses faith. Suddenly, in 1961, the fidelity of this Dodger Job is redeemed. He rolls off six years of impeccable performance that earn him a berth in the Hall of Fame. To paraphrase Ecclesiastes, there is a time for everything, including premature retirement when a left arm becomes irreparably damaged. And then he disappears to a privacy of his own doing.
This is an interesting work that features memory and impression over sabermetrics. Koufax did win eleven games in 1958; he was not exactly a stiff before 1961. And if one looks at the stats closely, he was not that far from his peers even at his best: in his memorable six-season span, 1961-1966, he bested Juan Marichal in wins by a slim 129-124 margin and Don Drysdale by 129-111. [Marichal would win another 113 after Koufax retired.] Thus, the difference between Koufax and his peers like Marichal, Bob Gibson, and Drysdale must lie elsewhere than in sheer statistics. Jane Levy seeks to find that "otherness," focusing upon the atmosphere of postwar Brooklyn, the influence of Judaism upon the pitcher, and the mixed emotions of Koufax and his admirers alike when the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles. Leavy captures what stats guru Bill James uses as the ultimate criterion for admission to the Hall of Fame: his contemporaries thought of Koufax as the best at his position.
Koufax's career covered twelve years, much shorter than Marichal's or Warren Spahn's. In retrospect, however, he seemed to have pitched in two different eras of the game. In those grainy black and white films of the 1955 World Series, when Dodger outfielder Sandy Amoros started the mother of all double plays near the left field foul line, a very young Koufax watched from the Dodger bench. He was there the next year to see Larsen's perfect game; he moved with the team to Los Angeles; he pitched in the Coliseum with its "Wally Moon home run porch" and was a member of the 1959 World Series Championship team, posting an 8-6 season record. Aside from winning big in the 1960's, he and Drysdale attempted the first "collective bargaining" strategy and started the ball rolling for Curt Flood and Marvin Miller.
Amazingly during his Brooklyn high school days Koufax was not considered prospective baseball material, and certainly not a pitcher. His sport, ironically, was basketball, and on February 10, 1953, Koufax and his Lafayette High School five [which included a scrappy Alan Dershowitz] embarrassed a New York Knicks team paced by Harry "The Horse" Gallatin and Al McGuire. He might never have attempted organized baseball were it not for a serendipitous encounter with one Milt Laurie, Braves' prospect turned truck driver. Laurie was impressed with the speed of Koufax's delivery, if not his control, and eased him into the world of Brooklyn amateur baseball. Later, at the University of Cincinnati, baseball coach Ed Jucker [yes, that Ed Jucker, better known for his coaching on hardwood floors.] complained that none of his catchers would go near Koufax for fear for life or limb. It is unclear who among the Dodger organization first caught sight of Koufax-though Walter Alston had seen him play basketball at Cincinnati-Al Campanis appears to have spearheaded the recruiting and signed the lefty.
Koufax, as Leavy observed, came to the Dodgers at roughly the same time as Alston. The latter's conservative and basic outlook on the game was never quite at peace with the unpredictable Koufax. Their relationship was tense. Leavy overstates the case when she argues that Alston was flat out afraid to use him-Koufax started 25 games in 1958-but she is correct that the Dodger organization did not know how to manage him. As a result, Koufax developed his unique windup and delivery pretty much on his own. Leavy devotes an entire chapter to his delivery, including kinetic sketches--admirable until one realizes that this very delivery nearly destroyed his left arm. When the reader considers how Leo Mazzoni has nurtured flame-thrower John Smoltz through near twenty profitable seasons, the tragedy of Koufax's shortened career comes into clearer focus.
The Koufax who emerges here is neither a philosopher nor a religious fanatic. He is a competitive but sociable Brooklynite who never totally succumbed to West Coast glitz nor corporate Dodger hubris. His reserve is a genuine humility, a reluctance to trade in on what he considered a physical ability, and should not be confused with the darker shadows of DiMaggio. He was loved by his teammates, and respected [and feared] by the opposition. Thanks to Leavy's extensive search for Koufax contemporaries, there is a plethora of anecdotal material from Ron Fairly, Ken Holtzman, Nate Oliver, Jeff Torborg, Maury Wills, Wes Parker, and Ed Vargo, to name a few. The ultimate in nostalgia is Leavy's reconstruction over nine chapters of Koufax's perfect game of September 9, 1965. Pieced together from a scouting film, a boy's tape recording of the radio broadcast, and memories of the participants, Leavy recounts one of baseball's greatest pitching duels, between the perfect Koufax and the near perfect Bob Hendley of the Cubs. It is proof positive that the Koufax era was an experience that lifted all boats in the tide of competition.
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