Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy FROM OUR EDITORS
How good was legendary L.A. Dodger lefty Sandy Koufax? He pitched a perfect game against the Cubs in September 1965. How principled was he? A month after that perfect game, he refused to pitch in the opening game of the World Series, because the game fell on the same day as a major Jewish holiday. That gutsy decision earned him the respect and admiration of many and made him an even bigger symbol than his pitching had. Jane Leavy brings us the man behind the legend in this look at the great Koufax.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Nobody ever threw a baseball better than Sandy Koufax. He dominated the game - and the ball, making it rise, break, sing. Then, after his best season, in 1966, he was gone, retired at age thirty, leaving behind a reputation as the game's greatest lefty and most misunderstood man. The Brooklyn boy whom the Dodgers signed as "the Great Jewish Hope" will forever be known for his refusal to pitch the opening game of the 1965 World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur. Forty years later, Koufax stands apart and alone, a legend who declines his own celebrity. In Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy, Jane Leavy dispels the mystery to discover a man more than worthy of the myth.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Sportswriter Leavy describes her book as not so much a biography of a ballplayer as a social history of baseball, with the former star pitcher's career as the barometer of change. While both a preface and an introduction spin Leavy's storytelling wheels, a compelling, literary social history does indeed get rolling. Koufax refused to participate in the project, so Leavy has spoken to hundreds of people with something to share on the former Brooklyn/L.A. Dodger Hank Aaron, Joe Torre, childhood friend and Mets co-owner Fred Wilpon and even the old Dodgers equipment manager among them and their testimonies make for a rich baseball pastiche and an engaging look at the game's more innocent period. Koufax capped off his first year by watching the 1955 World Series against the hated Yankees from the bench, and following the Dodgers' historic victory headed from Yankee Stadium to class at Columbia University, where he studied architecture (in case the baseball thing didn't work out). Even when Leavy's historical anecdotes are quaint, they prove timely: she details Koufax holding out for a better contract with fellow star pitcher Don Drysdale in '66, paving the way for free agency. While Leavy's interest in Koufax's Jewish heritage at times seems to border on the obsessive, she delivers an honest and exquisitely detailed examination of a complex man, one whose skills were such that slugger Willie Stargell once likened hitting against Koufax to "trying to drink coffee with a fork." Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
VOYA - Bradley Honigford
Sandy Koufax is the antithesis of most former superstar athletes. He does not feel the need to self-promote. He does not have to feed a starved ego by putting his name in the paper every few months. He never has and never will. He is just a great person, who is considered one of baseball's greatest pitchers of the last half-century. Born in Brooklyn, New York, in December 1935, Koufax was more interested in basketball and the New York Knicks during his years at Lafayette High School than in the Brooklyn Dodgers. Following his freshman year at the University of Cincinnati, he was asked to try out for the Dodgers. After signing with them, he went to spring training in 1955. The first half of his career was frustrating for Koufax, as the Dodgers did not recognize his worth. The next six years, however, are considered by many to be the best ever by a Major Leaguer. The hard-throwing lefty retired after the 1966 season with an arthritic elbow and has never looked back. Leavy does not just tell the story of a great baseball player but also discloses the life of a great man. Writing about Koufax is difficult. He rarely does interviews and likes to keep his name out of the limelight, not because he values his private life beyond all else, but because he simply cannot see what all the fuss is about. The author's extensive research and interviews with Koufax's friends and former ballplayers are extraordinary. This biography is a highly recommended purchase for public and school libraries. Index. Photos. Appendix. VOYA Codes: 5Q 4P S A/YA (Hard to imagine it being any better written; Broad general YA appeal; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12; Adult and Young Adult). 2002, HarperCollins, 282p,
Library Journal
Leavy has framed the baseball life of Hall of Fame pitcher Koufax in the context of his perfect game pitching performance of September 9, 1965, one of the record four no-hit games he pitched in his career. The collaboration of the author with former U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky in reading the story works very well indeed; it helps tremendously that they are both baseball and Koufax fans. Saying that Koufax's career "began a decade too early" to take advantage of modern sports medicine, camcorders, and motion science hardly prepares the listener to imagine the pain in which Koufax pitched his final years as a Dodger. The remedies to the pain-caustic applications of red-hot pepper paste, drugs, and endless cortisone shots-hint at the determination and inner strength required to be the best left-handed pitcher ever. Comments from contemporaries in baseball as well as from others Koufax touched and continues to touch today make this audio absolutely inspiring. It will be most appreciated by baseball fans; very highly recommended for all sports and biography collections.-Cliff Glaviano, Bowling Green State Univ. Libs., OH Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
AudioFile
A Lefty'S Legacy is an amazing biography of an incomparable pitcher, a story that exemplifies courage, tenacity, and modesty. Former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky, who immortalized Koufax in his poem "Night Game," reads most of the book, with alternating chapters read by the author. The story is a fascinating one, and Leavy reminds us that Koufax on the mound was poetry in motion. Pinsky is a moving reader, whether performing his own poems or classic haiku. But his New Jersey baritone is more a reflection of bookishness than the Brooklyn barrio, making him an unusual choice to read a book about professional baseball. Parents and teachers should take note that the book is peppered with locker-room language inappropriate for younger listeners. S.E.S. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
Taut biography of the Dodger great's playing years: baseball savvy and as far from tall-tale-telling as former Washington Post sportswriter Leavy (Squeeze Play, not reviewed) can get. Koufax lent himself only incidentally to this work-to verify stories and allow the author access to his friends and family-but Leavy has produced what appears to be a very convincing portrait. She concentrates on the player's six last, mind-blowing years, when his fastball and curve ruled. His plays on the mound are adeptly recorded-including, as interspersed chapters, his perfect game, told with consummate skill and containing the only hint of hyperbole here: "the ball headed toward home like an eighteen wheeler appearing down the highway out of a mirage." But it's a sense of Koufax's character that Leavy most wishes to convey. Never one for promiscuous self-promotion, Koufax has been shoehorned into the recluse category; because he is reserved and Jewish, he was typecast as "moody, aloof, curt, intellectual, different." Yes, he wouldn't pitch the opening game of the World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur, an act with profound cultural impact, and yes, he liked to read, a positive egghead by sporting standards, though he also says: "I may have read Huxley once in my life, but if I did, frankly, I don't remember." His 1963 self-profile is true to form: "a normal twenty-seven-year-old bachelor who happens to be of the Jewish faith. . . . I like to read a book and listen to music and I'd like to meet the girl I'd want to marry." But Leavy reveals also a man of dignity, honesty, and courtesy, not to mention his having that shaman's touch with a baseball. He is, simply, a standard: "In virtually every waythat matters, ethically and economically, medically and journalistically, he offers a way to measure where we've been, what we've come to, what we've lost." Well-conceived and sharply drawn, a thinking fan's biography.
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