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THE COMEBACK
Matthew Garringer
July 16, 2023
Good evening. This is Dead Legends. We’re the kind of guys that love a good chirp.
Can’t beat the classics.
Let’s dive in.
Today’s story is about one of the greatest comeback careers in baseball history.
“Trying to hit Koufax was like drinking coffee with a fork.”
Most people would rank Sandy Koufax in their top 50 pitchers of all time.
Although he had a short career relative to most Hall of Famers, Koufax had arguably the most dominant six-year stretch of any player ever.
During that time, he was:
An MVP
A six-time All Star
A three-time Cy Young winner
Won two World Series rings
Won won World Series MVP awards
But before he became one of the greatest pitchers of all time, he was a struggling southpaw who nearly quit baseball to work for an electronics business.
Koufax began his career 36-40.
He was walking an average of 5.3 batters per game and Dodgers manager, Walter Alston, routinely pulled him from the starting rotation.
Alston would ask, “How can I pitch you when you can’t get the side out?”
Koufax fired back, “How can I get the side out sitting on the bench?”
After the last game of the 1960 season, he threw his glove & cleats in the trash.
That offseason, the Dodgers denied his trade request.
Past the point of frustration, Koufax seriously considered quitting baseball altogether and going to work for an electronics business he had invested in.
So how did he turn his baseball career around?
Right before spring training, Koufax had a tonsillectomy, and the surgery caused him to have a serious loss of appetite.
When all was said and done, he lost roughly 20 pounds before meeting the Dodgers in Vero Beach, Florida.
This forced him to work harder to pack the muscle back on.
That year in spring training, Koufax:
Fixed a hitch in his wind-up
Learned how to throw a slider
Improved his control by “taking the grunt” out of his fastball
Began to focus on getting ahead in the count with a first-pitch strike
According to Vin Scully, the 25-year-old Koufax quickly went from “thrower” to “pitcher”, and it worked like a charm.
That season, Koufax led the league with 269 strikeouts and won 18 games.
In ‘63 Koufax struck out a whopping 306 batters and posting a 1.88 ERA, becoming the first-ever unanimous Cy Young Award winner.
Then he helped the Dodgers sweep the Yankees on his way to winning World Series MVP.
The accolades piled up through ‘66 when Koufax abruptly announced his retirement at 30-years-old because of chronic arthritis in his throwing elbow.
According to the Baseball Hall of Fame,
“In April of 1966 Koufax was told that he couldn’t go another season, but he did just that – winning a career-high 27 games with a career-best 1.73 ERA.”
Dodgers team physician, Dr. Robert Kerlan, said at the time, “Sandy pitches in extreme pain that can only be overcome by his motivational urge.”
In ‘72, Koufax became the youngest player ever elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame, cementing his legacy as one of the greatest pitchers in MLB history.
THE UNDERDOG
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STRANGE NAMES
If you're just joining us, we play this game every day where we try to find the weirdest names throughout baseball history.
Why? Don't ask us, it's just something we like to do.
If you've been rocking with us for awhile now, you know what time it is.
Today's winner is:
Charles “Boss” Schmidt was one tough son of a bitch.
He grew up working in coal mines and prizefighting, and if you had a problem with him, Boss was never afraid to throw hands.
Matter of fact, he fought Ty Cobb, his own teammate, twice.
The second time, he beat Cobb close to unconsciousness, but stopped once it was clear he won the fight.
In typical male fashion, it actually made Cobb respect Schmidt even more, and two ended up becoming pretty good friends.
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