The Minnesota Twins stunned Los Angeles Dodger pitchers Don Drysdale in Game 1 and Sandy Koufax in Game 2 in Minnesota. But the Dodgers came back in Los Angeles, winning Game 3 behind Claude Osteen, Game 4 behind Drysdale, and Game 5 behind Koufax. Back in Minnesota, the Twins took Game 6 thanks to a shutout and a home run by Jim "Mudcat" Grant.
Now, he was working on 2 days rest‚ and throwing only fastballs so that his great curveball doesn’t hurt his aching elbow as much as it hurts the Minnesota batters, fighting both the pain and the home-team trend. He was facing Jim Kaat, who beat him in Game 2, before Koufax beat him in Game 5.
With 2 outs in the bottom of the 1st inning, Koufax walked American League batting champion Tony Oliva and dangerous slugger Harmon Killebrew, but struck Earl Battey out to end the inning. In the top of the 3rd, Kaat gave up a lead off double to John Roseboro and a walk to Koufax himself, but worked out of the jam.
Kaat had a no-windup delivery, so he was less prone to fatigue than most pitchers. But he began the top of the 4th by allowing a home run to Lou Johnson, a double to Ron Fairly, and a single to Wes Parker, giving the Dodgers a 2-0 lead. That was enough for Twins manager Sam Mele, who relieved Kaat with Al Worthington, who ended the threat.
Ordinarily, for Koufax, a 2-0 lead meant "game over." But the pain. No curveballs. Just fastballs. The Twins knew what was coming, and still, they had trouble with it. With 1 out in the bottom of the 5th, Frank Quilici hit a double to left. Pinch-hitting for Worthington, Rich Rollins worked Koufax for a walk, and the tying runs were on. But he got 2 groundouts to get out of it.
Mele had to trust his bullpen, and brought Johnny Klippstein in to pitch. Dodger manager Walter Alston decided that Koufax, in his condition, was still better than anyone in his bullpen. He was right, as Koufax got through the 6th, 7th and 8th innings without allowing another baserunner. The Dodgers were 3 outs away from the World Championship.
But to get those last 3 outs, he would have to face Oliva, Killebrew and Battey. If any of them got on, hard-hitting Bob Allison would come up as no worse than the tying run. He got Oliva to ground to 3rd, but Killebrew singled to left. He caught Battey looking. Allison worked him for a 2-ball, 2-strike count. With his 123rd pitch of the game, all of them fastballs, Koufax struck him out swinging.
He had allowed 3 hits and 3 walks, striking out 10. With only a fastball. On the road. Against a team that had won 102 games and scored an average of 4.78 runs per game. In a game that meant everything. Sports Illustrated named him their Sportsman of the Year.
Koufax had refused to pitch in Game 1, because he was Jewish and the game fell on Yom Kippur. The Dodgers lost. And then he lost Game 2, forcing him to pitch on short rest in Game 5 and on shorter rest in Game 7. If the Dodgers had lost the World Series, Koufax would have essentially sacrificed a World Series win for the sake of his religious beliefs.
Maybe his place in the pantheon of sports actually be higher if that had happened -- higher, that is, outside of Los Angeles and Southern California. Would he still have been so admired in the L.A. market? There's no way to know if Dodger fans, already spoiled, would have forgiven him.
They were already spoiled, because this was the Dodgers’ 4th World Championship, their 3rd since moving to Los Angeles, and their 2nd in 3 years. In each of the last 2, Koufax was named the Series' Most Valuable Player. Certainly, this time, he was its most courageous.
Among the players of his generation, Koufax is one of a few that was not only an all-time great, but had a genuine mystique that raised him even higher in the memories of baseball fans, including those who, like me, were too young to ever see him pitch. Those few also include Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Bob Gibson, Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson and Roberto Clemente. If you want to extend it by a few years, you can add Carl Yastrzemski and maybe Pete Rose.
But because of the Los Angeles media, and the religious factor, Koufax occupies a truly rare place in the sports fan mind.
One more note: The basketball team at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) had won the NCAA Tournament earlier in this year. This Dodger World Series win allowed Los Angeles to follow New York (in 1950, CCNY and the Yankees) and Chicago (in 1963, Loyola and the Bears) as the 3rd city to win the NCAA Tournament and a major league sports championship in the same year. In 1972, the Los Angeles Lakers would win the NBA Championship, with UCLA winning yet another National Championship. L.A. remains the only city to do it twice, let alone in 2 different sports. New York in 1950 and Los Angeles in 1965 remain the only cities to win both the NCAA Tournament and the World Series in the same calendar year.
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October 14, 1965 was a Thursday. Football was in midweek. The NBA season started the next day. And the NHL season started 9 days later. So there were no other scores on this historic day.
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