[ewing]

The author on this upcoming book said he interviewed over 400 people for his boigraphy on Sandy and not one person had a bad thing to say about him.

[vrwc54]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/gossip/story/48828p-45876c.html

The Word

Left-handed praise

You may have read elsewhere that an unnamed "baseball hero" who is the subject of a best-selling biography allegedly agreed to cooperate with the author only after receiving a promise that the book would not reveal he is gay. Now, The Word is no sports fan, but does read best-seller lists, and that made it pretty simple to narrow down the possible subject of that blind item to Sandy Koufax, the great left-handed Dodger pitcher whose bio was a big book this Christmas.

Koufax gay? Nothing wrong with that — but no way!

The Word easily confirmed that Koufax lives in Greenwich Village and in Bucks County, Pa., with a woman he met on Tortola, where they both often spend time. She bears an uncanny resemblance to Carly Simon — and Koufax isn't her first brush with celebrity. She was the roommate of First Lady Laura Bush at Southern Methodist University.

[Man of the Right]

Koufax was the DiMaggio of his generation: pure class. I watched his perfect game on TV and saw a no-hitter and a 18-strikeout game in person. He lead the league in ERA five consecutive seasons and went 14-7 (14-2 when he was injured), 25-5, 19-5 (when he went out for the season in early August), 26-8, and 27-9. Not many pitchers leave the game at 27 & 9. The Dodgers were incredibly loose when he pitched. Koufax would joke with Johnny Roseboro (another class act) while he was pitching. With Koufax on the mound, the Dodgers knew all they had to do to win was score one run or two runs. Maury Wills would single, steal second, go to third on a grounder, and Tommy Davis or Frank Howard would get the sac fly. Put another W in Koufax's column. Koufax even went 3-1 lifetime against Juan Marichal.

[Hildy]

My Dad wrote a book about Sandy Koufax back in the early 70's. My Dad respected him more than anyone he'd ever written about. Above all Koufax was a VERY private man. That's probably why this was so upsetting to him.