This is exactly how I remember him. He thought of himself as using his whole frame to "catapult" the ball.
Posted on 09/06/2009 12:03:02 PM PDT by EveningStar
"On the scoreboard in right field, it is 9:46 p.m. in the City of the Angels, Los Angeles, California. And a crowd of 29,139 [has seen] the only pitcher in baseball history to hurl four no-hit, no-run games. ... And now he caps it. On his fourth no-hitter, he made it a perfect game."
The date was Sept. 9, 1965, and it seemed appropriate that Vin Scully, the best baseball broadcaster since World War II, was telling the world that Sandy Koufax, the most dominant pitcher of that period, had achieved the ultimate...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Sandy Koufax was my boyhood hero! I got to see him when he came to LA. Along with Maury Wills and Don Drysdale!
Most people don’t remember that when Koufax pitched his perfect game, his opponent, Cubs pitcher Bobby Hendley, pitched a one hitter. The final score was 1-0
“If you pick one pitcher in his prime to win a ballgame for you, who is it?”
Dodger manager Walter Alston made that decision in the 1965 World Series, and decided Koufax on two days rest was a better bet to pitch game seven than Hall-of-Famer Don Drysdale on three. The result was a 2-0 Dodger victory, and drew this comment from Minnesota manager Sam Miele:
“If anyone would like to make the World Series the best five out of nine games I would be willing to go on with it right now. But Koufax is murder. Great! The best I believe I have ever seen. You hate to lose, but we didn’t disgrace ourselves. We were beaten by the best pitcher that there is anywhere.”
“Most people don’t remember that when Koufax pitched his perfect game, his opponent, Cubs pitcher Bobby Hendley, pitched a one hitter. The final score was 1-0”
And the only run scoredwas unrelated to the hit. It is still I believe the only nine-inning game in major league history with only one hit in total by both teams.
Nolan Ryan’s lifetime W-L record was 324-292. For some reason Ryan frequently pitched just well enough to lose.What follows is the absolute best analysis I have ever seen of where Nolan Ryan absolutely belongs in the pantheon; it is from a book in which he was ranked as the 25th greatest pitcher of all time, and that was pending the conclusion of Tom Glavine's and Randy Johnson's careers, both of which should push Ryan a notch or three further down. (Juan Marichal is ranked number 21 in the same book's ranking---behind Three-Finger Brown, behind Ed Walsh, behind Gaylord Perry, behind Jim Palmer, behind Robin Roberts, behind Bob Gibson, behind Steve Carlton, behind Greg Maddux---and this is absolutely nuts. Juan Marichal was several times the pitcher those guys were, and I guarantee you that had it not been for the contemporary presence of a fellow named Koufax, it would have been Juan Marichal winning the one-across-the-board Cy Young Awards that Koufax owned.)Ryan belongs in the Hall of Fame, but in my opinion he did not merit his first-ballot 98.8% vote. Sports are primarily about winning, and while Ryan was often a spectacular pitcher, overall he was only marginally a winner.
The mystique of Nolan Ryan was based on two things. First, the other players were somewhat in awe of Ryan. The hitters were in awe of him because they couldn't hit him; the pitchers were in awe of him because they understood how difficult it was to do what he did.I don't mean to deny that Ryan was a great pitcher. But Sandy Koufax was better. So were quite a few other guys, including some whom Ryan faced early and later in his career.Second, while Ryan certainly was not the greatest pitcher of his time, he was one of the most unusual pitchers of his time. Ryan tried to throw unhittable pitches, one after another, even to weak hitters, even when he was behind in the count. The "ease up and let the fielders do their work" software had never been installed on his machine. From the beginning of his career to the end, a Nolan Ryan game featured strikeouts, walks, and very few hits.
This could be perceived in two ways. On the one hand, it could be perceived as a "no compromises" position, that Ryan never gave in to the hitter, even in situations where any other pitchers would have. But on the other hand, it could be seen as a sort of permanent compromise. Ryan was saying to the hitters, in essence, "You can have a walk if you want, but I'm not giving you anything to hit." Giving the hitter the walk, in some eyes, was enough.
Sportswriters have portrayed Ryan as either a heroic pitcher who never compromised, or as a pitcher who was constitutionally compromised. But because Ryan was so respected by the other athletes, the option of portraying him as constitutionally compromised was shut off to sportswriters, who were unwilling to present Ryan in a manner that might not have set well with the other players. Sportswriters---not all of them, but many of them---often seemed to be anxious to send the message back to the athletes that "We get it; we understand. We understand how remarkable Ryan really is, and we would never portray him any other way."
But the other option, the option of portraying Ryan as a very flawed pitcher, was quite obvious, and loomed like an elm tree over all discussions of Nolan Ryan. And this led to a lot of nonsensical information being generated on behalf of Ryan---for example, sportswriters would write that Ryan added ten thousand fans to the gate every time he pitched, when in reality five hundred fans was a generous estimate, or point out that between 1972 and 1978 Ryan was 107-1 or something when he entered the eighth inning with a lead (which is a meaningless stat, because managers never allow a starting pitcher to lose the game in the late innings. Everybody wins almost all his decisions when entering the eighth inning with a lead, because if you're going to lose that game you'll let the bullpen do it).
The struggle between these two views of Ryan propelled him out of the class of ordinary players, and lifted his image to a plateau beyond. Ryan has been retired almost ten years; in another ten, perhaps we will begin to get a little bit of perspective about him. Ryan's log of accomplishments is as thick as Bill Clinton's little black book; his list of flaws and failures is lengthy but dry, and will never make for good reading. He rates as well as he does here, in part, because my method compares a pitcher to zero; he ranks not nearly as well if he is compared to the average.
---Bill James, from The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract. (New York: Free Press/Simon and Schuster, 2001.)
I saw Koufax pitch once. It was 1964 in LA. Koufax was having a fabulous season but that game may have been one of the worst he ever pitched.
At one point he threw the ball about 10 feet over the batter’s head. The batter didn’t move. He and the catcher and the umpire just watched the ball arc over them.
Koufax just stood there, shoulders slumped. He muttered some unprintable prose. Then he laughed. The batter and the catcher and the umpire laughed. Then the crowd roared with laughter and gave Koufax a standing “O”.
Are you going to be broadcasting tomorrow night, or are you taking the holiday? ;DI'm still broadcasting Monday night. Somebody's got to do it! Besides, I have to labour until I nail down some serious sponsors. After which, well, I'll keep labouring anyway (believe it or not, I actually do work about forty hours a week to do this show; I actually do write scripts, produce appropriate sound . . . but then I only allow one readthrough---I learned a lesson from Goodman Ace, who only liked to do one readthrough before going on the air with Easy Aces because he wanted it to sound natural and not "acting," and I've found that to be absolutely vital when you're doing the kind of comedy that I do, where the whole meaning of the humour is even more important than getting a big laugh)---it's my love as well as my coming living.
Here's last week's show, in case you missed it . . .
The Kallmanac: The Mother-in-Lawsuit; Cash for the Cabbie (31 August 2009)
I remember. I listened to the entire game live. I wish I'd been there in person, though.
Awesome!
Thank you for the new link!
You’re sounding great! Hope the sponsors come rolling in!
Not much comment on Sandy's life nowadays. As always he seems to be very discreet about his public appearances, and he should be respected for wanting to remain as private as possible. He always thought that the public made too big a thing over his athletic prowess.
First inning went: strike one, strike two, strike three; strike one, strike two, strike three; strike one, strike two, strike three. Three strikeouts on nine pitches! (Wouldn't want to take anything away from Koufax by mentioning that that Mets team was one of the worst in major league history.)
In the 9th inning, Richie Asburn, formerly of Phillies fame, hit a little flare down the left field line foul that almost caused heart attacks among the Dodger throng. Ashburn hit .344 in 1951.
Note that three pitchers have done this twice: Lefty Grove, Sandy Koufax, and Nolan Ryan.
I have a few at the hook, it’s trying to get them to bite the bait that’s the real work. ;)
It’s a shame you have to do this yourself. This part of the job is very time consuming. You should be doing, what you do best, being creative!
I almost put Marichal in my grouping of Koufax, Carlton, Gibson, and Seaver, all of whom I saw pitch in person many, many times. I wouldn't object to putting him in that category; at most, he was just half a notch below them. Marichal had the best assortment of pitches in the league.
Dodger Pete Richert struck out four batters in one inning in his first Major League game.
Here Vinny call the 9th inning of the perfecto.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uozLFsEPu8&feature=related
The voice of Vin Scully is the baseball voice I first remember.
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