Posted January 1 2008 by Marc Lerman
The Greatest Jewish Ballplayer Ever
Imagine this - it’s Game One of the World Series. The most dominating left-handed pitcher of the last 50 years is getting ready to take the mound for your team. He just came off of a season pitching over 335 innings (today’s pitchers are lucky to crack 235), struck out 382 batters (200 is a really good season these days) and just won his second consecutive Cy Young Award as the game’s best pitcher. You couldn’t be more excited - the best pitcher in the game in starting for your team in the first game of the World Series! However, there is a slight problem. Game One of the World Series is taking place on October 6, 1965, which happens to be Yom Kippur, and the pitcher is Sandy Koufax, the best Jewish baseball player ever. It’s rare that a Jewish player has dominated anything athletic, but to be so great to say that he won’t pitch - well, we’ll never see that again.
Koufax elected not to pitch on the holiest day of the year, and the Los Angeles Dodgers lost that first game, 8-2. Koufax returned for game 2, but not being on his regular schedule must have thrown him off, and he and the Dodgers lost 5-1. The Dodgers rebounded and won the next 3 games in Los Angeles before dropping game 6 in Minnesota against the Twins. Game 7 again featured Sandy Koufax on short rest, and he dominated the Twins and shut them out 2-0 to win the series for LA. At the end of the year, Koufax won Sports Illustrated’s “Sportsman of the Year” award, becoming only the third baseball player and the first and thus far only Jewish athlete to win.
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Cy Young » Blog Archive » Overdue - The 2007 American League Award Show says:
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[...] The Greatest Jewish Ballplayer Ever The Greatest Jewish Ballplayer Ever Posted by Marc Lerman | Filed under Sports, Holidays Imagine this - it’s Game One of the World Series. The most dominating left-handed pitcher of the last 50 years is getting ready to take the mound for your team. He just came off of a season pitching over 335 innings (today’s pitchers are lucky to crack 235), struck out 382 batters (200 is a really good season these days) and just won his second consecutive Cy Young Award as the game’s best pitcher. You c [...]