By Jon Weisman
Imagine a world without the Internet, without social media, without wall-to-wall sports coverage, and you pick up your morning paper from the driveway to find this:
“VERO BEACH — Sandy Koufax, greatest left hander in the game, flew back to Los Angeles Thursday for examination of his stiff and swollen elbow — the one on his million dollar pitching arm which he injured last season,” wrote Frank Finch of the Times.
This April 2, 1965 story showed that things were different 50 years ago in more ways than one. As we noted last week, Koufax’s 1964 season ended in mid-August. Nevertheless, on March 30, in the middle of Spring Training — nearly two weeks before Opening Day — Koufax pitched his second straight complete game for the Dodgers, striking out 10 in a 2-0 loss.
Two days later, the 29-year-old was on a plane to see Dr. Robert Kerlan.
“If there are no complications Sandy will take the first plane back to Dodgertown Friday,” general manager Buzzie Bavasi told reporters. “The swelling is above and in the back of his elbow, but it’s not swollen nearly as much as when he had to quit pitching last season. I think he’ll be all right.
“Sandy didn’t seem too worried when I talked to him today, but in a phone conversation with Dr. Kerlan I was advised to send Sandy home. … I’m concerned, of course, and this development is a real blow to the club. I sort of anticipated it, but through wishful thinking I hoped it wouldn’t happen.”
The next day, the Times headline was even bigger:
KOUFAX SIDELINED BY ELBOW ARTHRITIS
Southpaw’s Future in Doubt
Kerlan told the Times that Koufax had “a traumatic arthritic condition of the left elbow which tends to flare up under repeated stress … that will be an off-and-on occurence all year long,” adding that “it is very doubtful” whether Koufax could pitch in the season opener April 12.
“It is too early to tell what the results of treatment will be and too early to tell when he will be able to pitch,” Kerlan said. “I am going to be neither over-optimistic nor over-pessimistic at this time.”
Still, doomsday talk wasn’t far away. “It doesn’t take a genius to know that the Dodgers are in trouble if Sandy Koufax can’t pitch,” Leo Durocher, who was gearing up to be part of ABC’s announcing team in 1965, told Times columnist Sid Ziff. Durocher predicted that Cincinnati, Milwaukee, St. Louis and Philadelphia all had better chances at the National League pennant than Los Angeles.
A week later, Koufax was in Washington D.C. for an exhibition series between the Dodgers and the American League’s Senators. He played catch with pitcher Jim Brewer in the outfield on April 9, then took the mound two days later and threw three one-hit innings, striking out five. The next day, the Times said, he woke up “without a trace of swelling in his celebrated left elbow.”
Said Koufax: “It’s greatly encouraging, and now I’m going to try something new; I’m going to throw less between starts to save my arm for when it counts.”
Koufax made his 1965 regular-season debut in the Dodgers’ fourth game, 18 days after he flew home from Dodgertown to be examined by Dr. Kerlan. You’ll not be shocked to learn what happened next.
“Less than a month ago Sandy Koufax wondered whether he was washed up as a pitcher,” wrote Finch. “His left elbow resembled a pink balloon, and his $70,000-a-year job with the Dodgers was in jeopardy.
“But Sandy made a triumphant return to the wars Sunday when he scored his ninth straight victory over the Phillies, 6-2, in the most frigid 49-deg. weather you can imagine.”
In those extreme conditions, after that extreme Spring Training, Koufax faced 37 batters in a complete-game six-hitter with five walks, while striking out seven.
“There is no pain at all,” Koufax said after the game. “I was very pleased and I hope to get better.”
Amazingly, Koufax would finish 1965 with 335 2/3 innings in 43 games (41 starts), plus 24 more innings in three World Series starts — in the second-to-last season of his career.
Mark Hagerstrom
Don to the rescue! Aided by rain on the East Coast, Drysdale started three of the first six games that year.
Cary Covington
Skipping to the end of the 1965 season, I found this interesting fact on wiki:
No relief pitchers were used by the winning team in any game of [the 1965 World Series}; the winning starting pitcher went the distance in all seven games. This had not happened since 1940, and has never been repeated since.
Jon Weisman
That’s amazing.
oldbrooklynfan
It’s amazing how 50 years can go by as quick as it does. I can almost feel the fear of what the Dodgers could do without Koufax. Although they were a good team in ’65, they were much worst without Sandy. It would be hard to imagine.
Robert Waggoner
Well in 1967 they found out what they were like without Koufax in 1967 — Going from the NL Champs in 1966 to 73-89 and finishing 8th in 1967 — So yeah your right — took until 1969 when the Dodgers started playing top tier ball again — finishing 2nd place or better in 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78 —
jaymanne
My recollection was that by 1965, the Dodgers were not the offensive team they’d been in ’62 and ’63… primarily due to the loss of Tommy Davis in ’64. Even though they had a Cy Young Pitcher on the staff with Don Drysdale and really good relief pitching, the loss of Sandy would have been a catastrophe for the team in ’65.
stanfromtacoma
Koufax pitched 27 complete games that year and that was #1. Add in two more complete games in the World Series and the spring training complete game mentioned in the post and that gets him to at least 30 for the year. Amazing.