Sandy Koufax turned 90 years old two days before 2025 ended.
Sandy looked absolutely dandy on his birthday. On December 30, he wore a beautiful blue suit, matching blue tie with decorative circles and a white shirt, all of which looked great and went along with his beautiful white-toothed smile, a full head of white hair, and dark sunglasses.
Signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers under the bonus baby rule, which hampered many young players from getting proper training in the minor leagues, Koufax was pitching in the majors at 19 in 1955. He was wild and didn’t have enough control of his pitches to be a major help to the team. And to make room for Koufax, the Dodgers had to cut a better pitcher at the time, Tommy Lasorda, who became famous decades later as the Dodgers’ manager.
The bonus baby rule allowed teams to sign amateur players for over $4,000, but the player had to stay on the big-league roster for two years. It prevented the richer teams from stocking up on young talent in their minor league systems. Keeping young players in the major leagues who weren’t ready to help was not popular with managers or star players.
The only team that had major success with the rule was the Detroit Tigers. Al Kaline, a skinny 18-year-old outfielder starring on the sandlots of Baltimore, was signed by the Tigers in 1953. He batted 18 times that season, hit one home run, and had a .250 batting average. The following season, the 19-year-old became the regular right fielder for Detroit and hit four homers while batting .276. In 1955, the 20-year-old Kaline became a superstar by hitting 29 home runs and leading the American League with a .340 batting average. After playing 22 years and posting a .297 career average with 399 home runs, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1980 with Sandy Koufax among the previous Hall of Famers watching.
While Kaline was starring in 1955, Koufax saw limited action in 12 games and won 2 games and lost 2, with an earned run average of 3.02. Koufax did much worse in 1956 as he won 2 and lost 4 and his ERA ballooned to 4.91. From 1955 through the 1961 season, Koufax won 54 games while losing 53 with a not-impressive ERA of 3.94.
He finally paid attention to the advice about aiming his pitches and stopped firing them. His control improved and so did his record. In the five seasons from 1962 through 1966, Koufax posted a 111-34 record with a low earned run average of 1.95. In 1965 and 1966, Koufax had 27 complete games each season. Compare that with the 2025 season when only three major league pitchers had two complete games.
During his last two seasons (1965 and 1966), Sandy endured severe elbow pain that resulted in his early retirement when he was only 30. I remember the day his retirement was announced, November 8, 1966.
I had a government job in Detroit’s City Hall at the time, and a fellow employee just came back from a break and heard the news on the radio. He ran over to me and said, “Your boy just retired.” That’s what he always called Koufax, so I knew what he meant.
Everybody knew what Koufax meant to Jews, and the example he set by not playing on Yom Kippur. Koufax never had a bar mitzvah and probably couldn’t read a word of Hebrew. If he ever went to a house of worship on Yom Kippur it would be Reform. I hope before he turns 100, he writes his story and includes the story of his three marriages, growing up after his parents divorced when he was only three, his mother marrying a man named Koufax when he was nine, living in Long Island before moving to Bensonhurst and the antisemitic remarks of teammates.
There’s much more to the Sandy Koufax story.