At the dawn of the decade, baseball ruled the world of sports in America, a domination that was decades old and seemingly in place forever. The NFL and the NBA were the minor leagues. Baseball changed in the sixties and the focus of this book is on seven of the core players of the Dodgers teams that went to three World Series in four years and won two of them - Sandy Koufax, Maury Wills, Tommy Davis, Wes Parker, Jeff Torborg, Dick Tracewski and Lou Johnson. The truth be told though, this book is not really about the 1960's or the Los Angeles Dodgers. This book is about the most legendary Dodger of all-time, number 32, Sandy Koufax.
Wills made it to the bigs in 1959 after eight years of race-baiting torture in the minors, having worked his way up from the D League. The MVP of the 1962 season had few friends on the team but was close to Sandy Koufax. They screened each other's hate mail, as being either black or Jewish wasn't particularly popular. The Brooklyn-born Koufax had joined the team as a 19-year-old 'bonus baby' in 1955. If bonus babies were sent to the minors, there was a chance another team could poach them. So, Koufax rode the pine in Brooklyn and LA and never got to learn his craft in the minors. The first half of his brief career was a struggle, but he blossomed into a star in 1962 and started game one at Yankee Stadium in the '63 Series. He struck out 15, a Series record, and took his first steps towards baseball immortality. Followed by Drysdale and Roebuck, he pitched game four of the first sweep of the Yankees since 1922.
Tommy Davis, a Brooklyn born and raised center fielder, was a star on the same team, while Dick Tracewski was a light hitting utility infielder from rural Pennsylvania. Joining them at Vero Beach in 1964 were two college graduates, first baseman Wes Parker from USC and catcher Jeff Torborg from Rutgers. The 1964 season saw the beginning of the end for Koufax's majestic left arm. He was in pain and struggling. Unlike today, that meant he was not rested to conserve the future, but rather over-used to assure current usefulness. It was not unusual for the Dodgers to pitch him on two days rest. By August, his season was over. A month later, LA would close a losing season in sixth place.
The Dodgers bounced back in 1965 even though Tommy Davis broke an ankle early in the season. He was replaced by journeyman Lou Johnson, a black man who swung ferociously at the ball because it was 'white'. Unlike all the black men on the Dodgers, Johnson didn't just roll with prejudice, he fought back, particularly with the racist locals at Vero Beach. The author had the good fortune to be at Chavez Ravine the night of Sept. 9th, 1965. Sandy Koufax's perfect game was viewed by a select few because O'Malley did not allow home games to be televised. In a pennant race for the ages, the Giants ran off a 14 game winning streak and the Dodgers won 15 of their last 16. Koufax pitched 335 innings. He started game 7 against the Twins on two days rest and notched his second shutout in three days. He had won a game 7 on the road and did it on a day he did not have his curveball. He pitched almost all fastballs.
One of the overriding themes of this book is how deceptive and mean-spirited GM Buzzie Bavasi was on behalf of the tight-fisted Walter O'Malley. Bavasi was in charge of annual salary 'negotiations' during which he insulted, intimidated and abused the men of one of the greatest baseball teams ever assembled. Whether it was the mighty Koufax or the lowly Tracewski, Bavasi had in his back pocket baseball's reserve clause. If you wanted to play professional baseball, you played for the team that signed you and did so until you retired or they traded you. Not even Koufax, the 1963 Cy Young winner, World Series and regular season MVP had any leverage at all. The smiling, affable O'Malley was pulling in over two million in attendance every year, with a big league payroll of about $500,000. The author refers to his position as morally indefensible. After the performance of Drysdale and Koufax in 1965, Bavasi and O'Malley still thought it was business as usual.
The two pitchers held out 'together' and skipped spring training. The Dodgers buckled and paid Drysdale $110,000 and Koufax $125,000. That same spring, Marvin Miller started making his rounds and by the end of the season was the Executive Director of the Major League Players Association. Baseball was about to change. Koufax had already made up his mind. He was only thirty but he knew 1966 would have to be his final season. His arthritis was debilitating and he couldn't go on. He is the only pitcher to win the Cy Young in his final season and led the league in ERA, wins and strikeouts. However, the team was exhausted and barely won the pennant in the second game of a last day double header. Everyone was looking past the Series to a mandated month long, eighteen game trip to Japan with a $4000 pay day attached. O'Malley let Koufax and Drysdale and a few others out, but there had been an implied threat ; go, or run the risk of being traded. They were swept by the Orioles in the World Series, and shut out in the last three games. Maury Wills was so badly hurt that after four games in Japan, he left and returned to the US. In November, Koufax retired and O'Malley retaliated against Wills by sending him to Pittsburgh. It was over.
The players moved on, as did the franchise. The were, and still are one of the most valuable sports brands in the world. Drysdale became a Dodger announcer and died in his mid-fifties. Although feelings were rubbed raw at the end of their careers, both Maury Wills and Sandy Koufax remain regulars at spring training and at Chavez Ravine. As this was 'my' baseball team as a kid, I've enjoyed this.
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