60 YEARS AGO TODAY:
4/14/64 – Sandy Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers throws his
ninth complete game without allowing a walk in The Dodgers’ 4-0 Opening Day win
over St. Louis Cardinals. Incredibly, it was the only Opening Day start of his career.
Sandy Koufax was, without question, one of the greatest pitchers of all time.
You will see several other milestones that he achieved as we look back 60 YEARS AGO TODAY.
His career record was 165 wins and 87 losses ... but his most amazing statistic was the fact that over the course of his career, he struck out 2396 batters in just 2324 innings ... an average of one strike-out per inning over his 397 games.
He played his entire career for the Dodgers, first in Brooklyn and then in Los Angeles when the team moved to California in 1958.
He was major league baseball's first three-time winner of The Cy Young Award and was a seven time National League All Star. He was a three time Triple Crown Winner, with The Dodgers winning the National League pennant in each of those three years.
Twice during his career he struck out 18 batters in a nine inning game ... and pitched FOUR no hitters (including one perfect game) during his career. (I was fortunate enough to see him pitch that perfect game against The Chicago Cubs as I was home sick from school that day ... September 9th, 1965. In fact, The Cubs' pitcher, Bob Hendley, ALSO had a no hitter going into the seventh inning! (Talk about your pitching duels!!!) The Dodgers ended up winning the game 1-0 on ONE HIT! While I don't remember all of the details ... I just know that i really enjoyed it because I hated the Cubs!!! - lol - so I LOVED seeing them get no hit by such a great pitcher ... Wikipedia tells me that The Dodgers' winning run was scored in the fifth inning without a hit ... Left Fielder Lou Johnson walked, and then reached second on a sacrifice. He stole third and scored on a throwing error by Cubs Catcher Chris Krug, meaning the run was unearned. The Dodgers' only hit came in the seventh inning when Lou Johnson dropped a bloop-double into shallow right field. The final box score showed The Dodgers winning with one run on one hit ... while The Cubs had 0 run, 0 hits, and one very costly error.)
Three times during his career he had 300+ strike-outs per year. Eight times during his career, Koufax started a game on just two days' rest. He won six of those games, three times pitching a COMPLETE game ... and never lasted less than seven innings. He was forced to retire in 1966 at the age of 30 due to arthritis in his left, pitching elbow ... doctors warned Kofax that he could wind up losing the arm if he continued to pitch.
