Koufax Stays Out Of Sight, But Never Out Of Mind

IT WAS 27 years ago that a 30-year-old superstar retired after his best season. Sandy Koufax, the pitcher with a motion as fluid as hot syrup, had decided his time in the limelight was over.

The line began in Kevin Kennedy's manager's office and went right out into the clubhouse, Texas Rangers waiting with pens and pads, eager to get an audience with a 57-year-old man whose last pitch came 27 years ago. Kennedy has rarely seen such unabashed awe from big-leaguers, but he understood. This was Sandy Koufax, after all.

Among the waiting was pitcher Kevin Brown, who spoke about what an honor it was to meet him and said: "I was hesitant to bug him. I got my autograph and figured that would be it." But they wound up talking about mechanics and fastballs and much more, and Brown sat there riveted.

Koufax visited Arlington earlier this month, on Nolan Ryan Day. He paid tribute to Ryan and saw his longtime friend Kennedy, whom he met in the Dodgers' system. The only man who was cheered louder than Koufax was Ryan himself.

"I think a lot of people remember him as the greatest pitcher of the century," Kennedy said.

It was 30 years ago Oct. 2 that Sandy Koufax started the Dodgers' four-game World Series shutdown of the Yankees, striking out a record 15 batters, reducing a formidable lineup into so much offensive putty. He closed out the sweep four days later, striking out eight, yielding only a home run to Mickey Mantle in a 2-1 victory.

For Koufax, it completed a year of mind-boggling dominance: a 25-5 record, 11 shutouts, 306 strikeouts, a 1.88 ERA. It came in the midst of what may be the finest six-year stretch a pitcher has ever had. The only reason the run ended was that Koufax ended it, retiring on Nov. 18, 1966, after his greatest year of all, arthritic elbow notwithstanding. Sandy Koufax was 30 years old.

In a league of his own

So much has changed in the game since. So many other stars have come and gone. Even the career of Ryan, whose pitching hero was Koufax, is complete.

Often the passage of time dims the memory of a player's greatness. Full appreciation of accomplishments and stature becomes harder to retrieve. With the elusive Sanford Koufax, the Jewish kid from Brooklyn who mostly wanted to play basketball, it is quite the opposite.

Years slip by, and the name Koufax moves more and more into the realm of baseball royalty. The aura only seems to grow. He was from an era replete with big-name hurlers - Marichal and Gibson and his late, great teammate Don Drysdale. Still, he has a place unto himself.

"He was just something else," said Frank Howard, a Dodgers teammate from 1958 to 1964.

Moose Skowron once said, "He could tell you what was coming and you still couldn't hit it."

Said Norm Sherry, Koufax's roommate and part-time catcher, "Guys on the opposition always said he should be in a league of his own."

Like the famous line about pornography, an aura is hard to define, but you know it when you see it. Koufax's surely is wrapped up in the three Cy Youngs, the four no-hitters, the 382 strikeouts, in the fabled fastball and what Jeff Torborg, who caught Koufax's perfect game (Sept. 9, 1965, against the Cubs), calls "the best curveball I have ever seen." It also has to do with how he departed, not wanting to risk any further damage to his left arm.

"You hear about DiMaggio and Ted Williams quitting on top, but never had anybody had his best year ever and then quit," said Buzzie Bavasi, the longtime Dodgers exec. Koufax was 27-9 with a 1.73 ERA in 1966, and the next thing people knew, he was wearing an NBC blazer. It would be like Michael Jordan quitting today. The historical upshot is that the brilliance becomes timeless.

Though the Koufax mystique grows mostly from the pitcher he was, it also has a bit to do with the person he is. A few friends call him reclusive. More use the word "shy." Everyone agrees he is the most private of men, as he was when he played. He was never one to hit the hotel bar after the game. "We had a whole lot of room service, I'll tell you," Sherry said. Away from the field, Koufax enjoyed reading, cooking, tinkering with his stereo, going for long drives in the mountains. Crowds? Commotion? Forget it. One reason he stopped his work as a special-assignment pitching instructor with the Dodgers three years ago was that it was a visible position.

He just disliked attention

His desire for privacy is such that Kennedy half expects Koufax to ask him, "Why did you have to mention" the visit to Arlington and the reaction of the players? Nor is Koufax likely thrilled that Kennedy has talked openly about his offer to Koufax to work with the Rangers on an informal basis next spring. "I haven't found anyone better as far as understanding pitching," Kennedy said.

Bavasi once said that to see Koufax surrounded by reporters after a game was to see someone who would rather be in the dentist's chair. Koufax was never rude or arrogant. Indeed, many describe him as not only thoughtful, but also unfailingly gracious. He just disliked attention.

And he still does. He was inducted to the Hall of Fame in 1972 at age 36, the youngest inductee in history. Bill Guilfoile, the Hall's associate director, said Koufax has been back to Cooperstown, N.Y., only once since, for the enshrinement of Drysdale and Pee Wee Reese in 1984.

Koufax is as hard to find as he was to hit. At his request, the Dodgers do not forward mail, messages or interview requests. Calls placed to him by the club on behalf of the New York Daily News were unavailing. Dozens of other attempts to reach him - through friends, former teammates and assorted baseball sources - were fruitless, too. "He's by far the most difficult ex-Dodger to get hold of," said a club official. Said another: "His attitude is that he's had his turn in the limelight, and now it's somebody else's turn. He likes his privacy, and the organization respects that."

This is no baseball Bobby Fischer, for Koufax will do an occasional card show and make an appearance now and then, as he did in Texas. But then he is gone again. Since his retirement, he has lived in a remote part of the California coast, as well as Idaho, Vero Beach and Maine, in a speck of a town called Holden, outside Bangor. "He used to say the telephone poles stopped before you got there - that's how far out it was," said Norm Sherry. "I think he always just wanted a simple, easy life."

Likes wide-open spaces

Koufax has remarried after the breakup of his first marriage (to Ann Widmark, daughter of actor Richard). He has no children. He lives in North Carolina, where, Bavasi hears, he is involved in raising show horses. With a lean physique, gray hair and the familiar darkly handsome face, Koufax looks much younger than his age. He is about 25 pounds under the 210 at which he played. He is avid runner who has run a marathon, and he has no interest in trying another.

"He's got a little bit of a nomadic spirit," said Al Campanis, the scout who signed him. "He likes different places, likes to be in wide-open spaces."

Campanis described Koufax as a gentle, modest man, humble to the core - a nearly universal opinion.

"He never acted like he was anything special," Sherry said. Torborg still appreciates how Koufax went out of his way to make him feel comfortable after Torborg joined the club as a touted bonus baby, how he would give lower-profile teammates the gifts he was always getting for being the star of the game.

Torborg also spoke of Koufax's quiet manner - a trait that belied a fine sense of humor, as Walter Alston discovered on the mound one afternoon. It seems that relievers Bob Miller and Ron Perranoski were in the habit of pounding down a few extra beers the night before Koufax was pitching, because they knew they would not be needed. On one occasion Miller's hangover was particularly bad. Koufax picked that day to get into a jam in the eighth. Alston called the pen and ordered Miller to start throwing. The manager strolled to the mound and asked Sandy how he felt. Koufax said: "I'm going to be real honest with you, Walt. I feel a hell of a lot better than the guy you have warming up out there."

There was a time when Koufax needed plenty of relief, of course. He was 36-40 after his first six seasons, an unbridled talent who was wild and prone to overthrowing, and was so discouraged that the thought of quitting even crossed his mind. The astonishing turnaround began in a split-squad game in the spring. Koufax was throwing the ball all over Florida. Sherry walked out and suggested that he ease off and let them hit it, see what happens.

Koufax struck out the side. Said Sherry, "After the inning, I told, `I'm not blowing smoke up your rear; you just now threw harder than you did when you were trying to throw hard."

This was 1960, as Sherry recalls, and by 1961, Koufax was on his way.

Campanis, for one, never had any doubts that Koufax would find himself. His memory of Koufax's Ebbets Field tryout in September 1954 remains vivid. The scout had been tipped about Koufax by newspaperman Jimmy Murphy. At the time, Koufax was a University of Cincinnati basketball player who had pitched a handful of games in his life. As Koufax warmed up, Campanis kept hearing this loud pop. "He threw a low fastball that I thought was going into the ground, and it wound up being a knee-high strike," Campanis said. "The damn ball hopped like an airplane taking off." Campanis looked at the catcher, Rube Walker. Walker's eyes were bulging. Campanis had goose bumps on his arm. "A player like that comes across a scout's path every 40 or 45 years," he said.

`Best pitcher I ever saw'

Campanis told Bavasi he'd just seen an 18-year-old kid who could throw harder than any one in the National League. In the negotiation, Irving Koufax, Sandy's father, asked for a $14,000 bonus and got it. Because the Dodgers had no room on the roster at the moment, the deal was strictly a handshake. Shortly after, the Braves' offered $32,000. The Koufaxes stood by their handshake.

"That tells you what kind of people they were," Bavasi said.

And what kind of pitcher was he? "He's the best pitcher I ever saw, bar none," Bavasi said.