Koufax Throws a Curve
The Los Angeles Dodgers at the End of an Era, 1964–1966
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About the Book
The conclusion of the Sandy Koufax Era was a wild roller coaster ride for the LA Dodgers. Overly dependent on the fragile left arm of their to-be Hall of Fame left-hander, they careened from their worst season since World War II in 1964 after losing Koufax to an injury in mid–August, to a World Series Championship in 1965 on the strength of his shutout performance on short rest in Game 7 with the Twins, to an ignominious World Series collapse to the Orioles in 1966 after he single-handedly saved the Dodgers’ 1966 regular season in the final game. In the last two seasons of his career, Koufax averaged an impressive 27 complete games, 27 wins and 350 strikeouts. Yet 16 days after winning his second straight unanimous Cy Young Award, he shocked Major League Baseball by announcing he was going to retire. Like a supernova that had lit up the sports world for six years, he flamed out and was gone by age 30.
About the Author(s)
Bibliographic Details
Brian M. Endsley
Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 215
Bibliographic Info: 61 photos, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2018
pISBN: 978-1-4766-6942-7
eISBN: 978-1-4766-3239-1
Imprint: McFarland
Table of Contents
Preface 1
Prologue 3
Part I. 1964: The Lost Season
1. Off with a Bang, and Off a Cliff 5
2. The Light Goes Out in August 10
3. A Season Ends in Chaos 17
4. Autopsy for a Lost Season 22
Part II. 1965: The Triumph of Drysdale and Koufax
5. The Spring of Doubt 25
6. Mayday! Mayday! 32
7. Survival Summer 37
8. September of Colliding Streaks 50
9. The World Series with the Twins 63
10. How in the World Did They Do It? 72
Interlude 77
Part III. 1966: Flameout!
11. Holding Out in a Gathering Storm 81
12. Struggling in the Aftermath 86
13. Climbing to First on the Back of #32 106
14. Staggering into the Break 118
15. Three-Team NL Dogfight Round 1—August 129
16. Three-Team NL Dogfight Round 2—September 140
17. The Last Weekend 156
18. The World Series with the Orioles 161
19. Coming Apart in Japan 173
20. Black Friday 176
Epilogue 179
Appendix: Sandy Koufax Statistics 183
Chapter Notes 189
Bibliography 203
Index 205
