October 6, 1965: Sandy Koufax Does Not Pitch On Yom Kippur

October 6, 1965: Game 1 of the World Series at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota, the 1st World Series game ever played in that State. The Minnesota Twins are hosting the Los Angeles Dodgers, whose ace is Sandy Koufax.

That season, Koufax had gone 26-8, with a 2.08 ERA, 27 complete games, 8 shutouts, a perfect game against the Chicago Cubs, a WHIP of 0.855, and 382 strikeouts, a new single-season record. (That record still stands for National League pitchers, and for lefthanded pitchers in either League.)

But Koufax, being Jewish, does not pitch today, because it is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. So he is pushed back to Game 2, and Don Drysdale is started today. No problem, right? Big D is also a future Hall-of-Famer, right?

Not today: Don Mincher and Zoilo Versalles -- who hit only 2 homers in the regular season, but was named the American League's Most Valuable Player for his contact hitting, speed and defense -- hit home runs off Drysdale. When manager Walter Alston comes to take him out in the 3rd inning, Drysdale says to him, "I bet you wish I was Jewish, too!"

Jim "Mudcat" Grant allows only 1 hit, a home run by Ron Fairly, and the Twins, in the 1st World Series game in their history (unless you count their Washington Senators days, in which case it's their 1st in 32 years), win 8-2.

To make matters worse for the Dodgers, Koufax loses Game 2 as well. The Dodgers will come back, though, and win the Series in 7 games. The Twins will not get this close to a World Championship again for another 22 years.

I wonder: If the Dodgers had lost the World Series, Koufax would have essentially sacrificed a World Series win for the sake of his religious beliefs. Would his place in the pantheon of sports actually be higher if that had happened?

In 1934, baseball's 1st Jewish star, Hank Greenberg, refused to play a regular-season game because it fell on Yom Kippur, and his team, the Detroit Tigers, were in a very tough AL Pennant race. They won the game and the Pennant, anyway, so he was hailed as a hero. So was Koufax.

On September 26, 2001, following the example of Greenberg and Koufax, Dodger right fielder Shawn Green sat out a game that fell on Yom Kippur – and also donated his day's pay of $75,000 to a charity for 9/11 survivors. The Dodgers lost the game to their arch-rivals, the San Francisco Giants, 6-4 at Dodger Stadium. It had little effect on the Playoff race: Neither team made it.

*

October 6, 1965 was a Wednesday. This was also the day that Ian Brady and Myra Hindley were arrested for "The Moors Murders." I have a separate entry for that event.

Football was in midweek. The NBA season wouldn't start for another 9 days, and the NHL season for another 17. So there were no other scores on this historic day.