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Post by tonyo on Oct 26, 2006 18:14:18 GMT -5
I'm just finishing up a book by Jane Leavy on Sandy Koufax. Good book. It sure brought back a lot of memories. I've watched a lot of baseball and I've seen some great pitchers in my time. In the five year period from 1962 through 1966, Sandy Koufax was the best I ever saw ! He was the most dominating pitcher of his era and there were some great ones like Bob Gibson, Juan Marichal, Jim Bunning and the fireballing Jim Maloney in the National League while the AL had the likes of Whitey Ford and a bullet thrower in Cleveland named Sam McDowell. Sandy was the cream of the cream. Behind Sandy and his great pitching teammate Don Drysdale, The Dodgers just lost out to the Giants in 1962. The Dodgers took the NL flag in 1963 and then swept the mighty Yankees in four games to take the World Series. Koufax and Drysdale led the Dodgers back to the World Series in 1965. There they had to go seven games to edge out the Tony Oliva and Harmon Killebrew Twins to recapture the World Championship. The Dodgers lost the 1966 World Series to The Robinson ( Frank and Brooks) led Orioles. Sandy retired thereafter citing chronic elbow problems. In the 62-66 five year period he was in a word, awesome !!!
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Post by tomservo on Oct 26, 2006 19:51:40 GMT -5
Koufax was incredibly dominant during that period. I was listening to a radio interview with Juan Marichal on XM and he talked about how he always seemed to be matched up with koufax when the giants played the dodgers.
Oddly enough, today I was reading some excerpts from Drysdale's biography in which he called todays pitchers soft and scared to pitch inside. Particularly calling out Hersheiser. Perhaps this was with a pinge of bitterness?
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Post by nyjyrk on Oct 28, 2006 9:48:55 GMT -5
Koufax is one of the greatest "what ifs" in history. His short span of absolute dominance begs the questions- What if he had developed earlier and been that dominant before? What if he hadn't pitched so many innings, could he have had a longer career? What if he played in an era where he could have had Tommy John surgery to repair that elbow?
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