In 12 seasons in the majors, Sandy Koufax made just one Opening Day start for the Dodgers. It came 60 years ago, April 14, 1964, against the Cardinals.
Koufax, 28, was considered to be at the top of his game then, coming off a dominant season. The left-hander won both the National League Most Valuable Player and Cy Young awards in 1963. He was 25-5 that season, including 4-0 versus the Cardinals, and led the majors in wins, ERA (1.88), shutouts (11) and strikeouts (306). Koufax also won Games 1 and 4 of the 1963 World Series, a Dodgers sweep of the Yankees.
Yet, as he approached an Opening Day start for the first time, Koufax admitted he was nervous. “Sure I feel it,” he said to columnist John Hall of the Los Angeles Times. “I’ve been getting worked up for days. It’s a thrill … I always get excited before every start, but the first game of the season is something extra.”
As it turned out, the prominence of the assignment wasn’t the sole reason for the jitters. Koufax’s pitching arm didn’t feel right.
Profit share
During contract negotiations for the 1964 season, Koufax proposed a “formula he worked out whereby he would participate in gate receipts on nights he worked,” Los Angeles Herald-Examiner columnist Melvin Durslag noted, but Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley “made it clear he wanted employees only, not shareholders.”
Koufax met with his former teammate, Jackie Robinson, who advised the pitcher to press the Dodgers for a share of ticket revenue. “He made a difference of 10,000 to 15,000 in attendance a game near the end of the (1963) season when he pitched,” Robinson told The Sporting News.
O’Malley wouldn’t budge in his opposition to the idea. He told Durslag that “the Hollywood and Las Vegas influence … tend to give people in our business delusions of grandeur. Our boys hear talk in terms of residuals, capital gains, percentages and pieces of the action, and they are misled into applying these patterns to baseball.”
On the day before the Dodgers’ team plane headed to spring training at Vero Beach, Fla., Koufax agreed to a contract of $70,000 for 1964, a doubling of the $35,000 salary he got in 1963, The Sporting News reported.
Ready or not
In his 1964 Florida spring training outings, Koufax threw mostly slow curves and changeups, but the Dodgers said it was nothing to worry about _ he was working on making his off-speed pitches better, The Sporting News reported.
Privately, Koufax confided his left arm was hurting, according to author Jane Leavy in her book “Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy.”
On April 10, 1964, four days before the season opener, Koufax was feted at the Los Angeles baseball writers banquet at the Hollywood Palladium on Sunset Boulevard. An overflow crowd of 1,500 attended the $20-a-plate dinner and was treated to entertainment from Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Nancy Wilson and emcee Phil Silvers.
The next night, Koufax started against the Angels in an exhibition game at Dodger Stadium and looked terrific in his two-inning tune-up, striking out five and allowing only an infield hit.
Good reads
Noting that Koufax “probably set a major-league record by reading more books in one season than any pitcher in history,” the Los Angeles Times asked him on the eve of the season opener to compile a list of books he’d recommend for teens.
Under the category of modern novels, Koufax suggested “Lord of the Flies” (William Golding), “Catcher in the Rye” (J.D. Salinger), “To Kill a Mockingbird” (Harper Lee), “A Separate Peace” (John Knowles), “I, Robot” (Isaac Asimov), “The Ugly American” (William Lederer and Eugene Burdick), “On the Beach” (Nevil Shute), “Jamie” (Jack Bennett), “Fail-Safe” (Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler) and “A Very Small Remnant” (Michael Straight).
A sampling of some of Koufax’s other recommendations included:
_ Adventures: “Annapurna” (Maurice Herzog), “Deliver Us From Evil” (Thomas A. Dooley), “The Edge of Tomorrow” (Thomas A. Dooley), “The Man Who Never Was” (Ewen Montagu).
_ Biographies: “Portrait of Myself” (Margaret Bourke-White), “The Diary of a Young Girl” (Anne Frank), “Surgeon” (Wilfred C. Heinz).
_ Histories: “Hiroshima” (John Hersey), “Profiles in Courage” (John F. Kennedy).
_ Humor: “The Education of Hyman Kaplan (Leonard Q. Ross), “Platypus At Large: A Nonsense Book of World Politics” (Emery Kelen).
_ Observation: “The Craft of Intelligence” (Allen Dulles), “Romance of Philosophy” (Jacques Choron), “The Fire Next Time” (James Baldwin).
_ Science: “The Universe and Dr. Einstein” (Lincoln Barnett), “Gods, Graves and Scholars” (C.W. Ceram).
Only four sports books made Koufax’s list: “The Four-Minute Mile” (Roger Bannister), “Basketball Is My Life” (Bob Cousy and Al Hirshberg), “Lou Gehrig: A Quiet Hero” (Frank Graham) and “Playing For Life” (Bill Talbert and John Sharnik).
Same Sandy
The book on Koufax was he looked good in pitching a six-hit shutout in a 4-0 Opening Day victory at Dodger Stadium. All six Cardinals hits were singles and only one Cardinal base runner advanced as far as second base. Boxscore
Koufax became the first Dodger to pitch an Opening Day shutout since Whit Wyatt did it in 1940 against the Braves at Boston. Boxscore
Cardinals team captain Ken Boyer told the Post-Dispatch, “Sandy’s curve got better as he went along. If you’re going to beat him, you’re going to have to do it in the early innings.”
Koufax and Cardinals starter Ernie Broglio were matched in a scoreless duel until Ron Fairly drove in Willie Davis with a single in the sixth. “That was the turning point,” Broglio told the Los Angeles Times. “You give Koufax a run and he gets pretty tough.”
Old arm
A week later, in the Cardinals’ home opener, Koufax gave up a three-run home run to Charlie James and departed after pitching one inning.
“He was slow,” Boyer told the Post-Dispatch. “It wasn’t too hard to figure something might be wrong with him.” Boxscore
Koufax was examined by Cardinals physician Dr. I.C. Middleman, who determined the pitcher had “inflammation of the elbow” and “a slight muscle tear” in his left forearm, the Post-Dispatch reported.
Middleman informed the newspaper that Koufax told him his arm had been hurting since spring training but he hadn’t mentioned it to the Dodgers.
Koufax missed his next three starts, took three cortisone shots and returned to the rotation on May 4. He found his groove in June (5-0 record) and July (5-1).
On Aug. 16, Koufax again shut out the Cardinals, striking out 13, and then was shut down for the rest of the season after being diagnosed with an arthritic left elbow. Boxscore
“Arthritis is an acute inflammation of a joint usually associated with old age,” Jane Leavy wrote. “Koufax’s elbow was old even if he wasn’t … The cartilage in his elbow was breaking down.”
Even with the ailments, Koufax managed to post a 19-5 record, with seven shutouts, and 1.74 ERA in 28 starts in 1964. He pitched two more seasons, winning the Cy Young Award both years, before calling it quits at 30.