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Sandy Koufax

Baseball is an outdoor sport in which a pitcher pitches a hard, fist sized ball to the hitting area of a batter. The batter hits the hard ball with a tapered, smooth, cylindrical bat made up of wood or metal. The batsman scores by running counter-clockwise within the four markers called the bases arranged at the corners of a diamond. Baseball is sometimes called hardball to differentiate it from similar games such as softball.

It is a popular game in North America, parts of Latin America, the Caribbean and East Asia. The modern game initially developed in the United States from an early bat-and-ball game called rounders, and now it has become the national sport of United States.

Sandy Koufax was born on December 30, 1935, in Brooklyn, New York. Koufax was 19 years old when he broke into the big leagues on June 24, 1955, with the Brooklyn Dodgers. His Nickname Koo-foo or Sandy or The Man with the Golden Arm. His height is six foot two inch and weight 210 pounds. He played Bats Right and Throws Left. Koufax packed a Hall of Fame career into the final six of his dozen major-league seasons. He was always a hard thrower, but control problems hobbled him during his early years. A Brooklyn high school baseball and basketball star, Koufax played both sports as a freshman at the University of Cincinnati, and then signed a bonus contract with the Dodgers. Under the rules of the time, the club was forced to keep the 19 year old on its major-league roster.

In 1961, he went 18-13 and led the NL in strikeouts with 269. Between 1961 and 1966, he led the NL in wins and shutouts three times each, complete games twice, and strikeouts four times. He pitched a no hitter each season from 1962 to 1965, with the last a 1-0 perfect game against the Cubs on September 9, 1965. Koufax achieved success despite physical problems. A mysterious circulatory ailment in his pitching arm cost him half a season in 1962. Another arm injury in 1964 shortly led to an arthritic pitching elbow. After a 27-9 record in 1966, he retired at age thirty-one rather than risk crippling his arm. Five years later he became the youngest man to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame and only the sixth to achieve the honor in his first year of eligibility.

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