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 ...
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!Tell me about it! ;)
Vanity post here. I have tried to find websites that list All Star games by year with the rosters, etc. but no luck. Any place you know of that may have that info? I have two autographed baseballs that my BIL gave me when I was a kid - probably 1968 to 1971 range. I think they must be from an All-Star games - probably at the Met Stadium in Minneapolis/St. Paul.
One of them has Sandy Koufax, Ernie Banks, Pete Rose, Willie Mays, Henry Aaron, Joe Torre, Frank Robinson, Bob Veale, and lots of others I don’t recognize. I did not realize that Willie Mays were still around when Pete Rose was playing.
The other is written in a different ink and is more faded and fewer names that I know, but I see Jim Hunter and Bert Campeneras.
I see them listed by year. Don’t know how far back they go. search MLB all star rosters 2000 etc.
Thanks! That was easy. Not sure why I had such a hard time finding it before.
1965 All-Star game at Met Stadium!
Check out the box to the right of center half way down.
Thanks again - that is the website I ended up on before. Even had a little recap of the game. Now I need to look for Harmon Killebrew’s autograph - my hometown favorite as a kid!
ebay??
I'm on a roll. Somebody stop me.
Several years ago I was almost desperate enough to sell them. Hopefully I can hang on to them and pass them down to my kids.
I agree. Ryan was great, without a doubt, but he’s also one of the most overrated pitchers of all time. The only man I can think of who may well have been better than Koufax was Satchel Paige. Sadly, he didn’t get to pitch in the majors until he was about 100 years old, so we’ll never really know.
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.At most, in fact, Juan Marichal actually outpitched Bob Gibson and Steve Carlton. Juan Marichal was the best righthanded pitcher in baseball in the 1960s, and he was better than many of even the greats who followed him. He was probably equal to Tom Seaver and slightly superior to Greg Maddux, and may have been better than Steve Carlton. If you remember that All-Century Team from 1998 or 99 or thereabout, it was an absolute joke that Juan Marichal shouldn't have been voted to that team while Nolan Ryan was.
I did not realize that Willie Mays were still around when Pete Rose was playing.
*chuckle* Pete Rose was the National League's 1963 Rookie of the Year in a season in which Sandy Koufax won the Most Valuable Player award and the one-across-the-board Cy Young Award. Two years later, Willie Mays won his second National League MVP---eleven years after winning his first, though he probably should have been the league's MVP in 1962; or, at least, perhaps shared the award with Frank Robinson. (There's no way Maury Wills was the league's most valuable player, even with 104 stolen bases to bust Ty Cobb's record---not when missing Sandy Koufax, thanks to a finger circulatory problem, ended up costing the Dodgers the pennant.) Willie Mays ended up retiring after the 1973 season, but he probably should have retired at least four seasons earlier. It was one sad sight to see Willie Mays doing a sad imitation of Willie Mays.
“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”
A story about Koufax and Hendley: On the 35th anniversary of the game, or approaching it, Hendley's son sent Koufax a clip about Hendley. Koufax returned it with an autograph and a note: "Say hello to your father for me." Shortly thereafter, Bob Hendley received a package: a 1965 National League baseball, marked in Koufax's handwriting: WHAT A GAME! It was accompanied by a note: We had a moment, a night, a career. I hope life has been good to you. Sandy.
To this day, whenever he's asked about that game, Bob Hendley will tell you, "It's no disgrace to be beaten by class."
1965 All-Star game at Met Stadium!
Correction: Shea Stadium got the All-Star game in 1964, the only time a Met ballpark has ever gotten the game, and it was the year the park opened. The game was won in the bottom of the ninth when Johnny Callison of the Philadelphia Phillies (who would have won the league's Most Valuable Player award had the Phillies held on to win the pennant they almost ran away with) swung on the first pitch from Dick Radatz of the Boston Red Sox and sent it over the right field fence. Credit for the win went to Sandy Koufax, who'd pitched one inning late in the game.
Correction to my correction (sheepish grin): Juan Marichal got the win in the 1964 All-Star Game (Don Drysdale started for the National League against Dean Chance, of the Los Angeles Angels, for the American League); Koufax got the W in the 1965 game in spite of pitching one inning.
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.
Koufax was the subject of a striking biography a few years ago, Jane Leavy's Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy, in which she described him as more than living up to his myth. He lives in Florida; he's twice divorced (and was said to have been shattered by both divorces, particularly his first---former Oriole catcher Andy Etchebarren told Leavy of bumping into Koufax in a tavern shortly after his first marriage collapsed and seeing how distraught he was over it) and childless (the nearest he has to children are nieces and nephews by way of his late half-sister's children and grandchildren; when he dies so dies the name Koufax) but has since come to live very quietly with a woman his own age; he hits the memorabilia shows once or twice a year and very quietly (he's actually very critical of the business, even though it provides his living now); he has investments in sports medicine; and, he continues to enjoy teaching on a free-lance basis in spring training, usually with the Dodgers or the Mets (whose owner, Fred Wilpon, has been a friend of his since their high school days together).
“The only man I can think of who may well have been better than Koufax was Satchel Paige.”
On a career long basis many great pitchers had better records than Koufax, because they had much longer careers. On a peak performance basis perhaps only Lefty Grove is in the same class. Satchel Paige is primarily a legend, and no one really knows how good he was at his best.
I remember that. I missed the broadcast but heard about it on the news later that night. He struck out the first six batters he faced, tying a record.
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