As a college sophomore at a top baseball school in the late 60's I was ineligible to play due to a transfer but I did get to pitch in an inter squad game. A few days later I was throwing in the batting cage before a league game but had to sit behind the team when it started due to regulations. A man came up and sat next to me and asked why I wasn't on the bench with the team. I explained and then he said "I'm here to scout (our starting pitcher) but I've been watching you for a while. You throw strikes and you've got a hell of a major league breaking ball, a real knee buckler. I'm the guy who first spotted Sandy Koufax and signed him." I will never know if his story was true but he never said I "threw gas like Koufax" and that's why you will never see me in a video like this. I had the good fortune to see Koufax vs the Cubs and Nolan Ryan and Tom Seaver vs the Padres live and at their best. A gifted major league pitcher is truly poetry in motion.
This man stood a notch above the second greatest pitcher ever. That's saying a lot. What an honor it would've been to see him pitching in person back then. He pitched consistently down the stretch, on 2 days rest, to get his team the wins needed. Poll any manager and ask if they needed 1 win, who would they pick to pitch that game. It explains everything you need to know about this pitcher.
Since the rubber is still 60'6", can't we get an exact mph measurement from the release of the ball to hitting the mitt? Can't it be visually broken down to hundreths of a second?
@@spcooper94 Drysdale's complaint seems legit! Absurd that nobody told them it was a speed test. It was spring training, they probably just threw warm-up tosses or barely faster. Koufax could not possibly have delivered a representative real-game fastball. At least Feller's 98.6 was accurate, though. Koufax had to have been at least mid-upper 90s at his fastest, too. The TV game footage we have of Koufax isn't slowed down or sped up compared to contemporary TV game footage, right? I don't understand what is stopping people from marking the exact instant the ball leaves his fingers and the exact instant it hits the glove, measuring how long that takes down to a hundreth of a second, and then comparing that to some of today's pitchers using the same exact method. Find a pitch from today that exactly matches up to Koufax's fastest, check the official advanced metrics on that pitch from today, and voila, we'd know pretty much exactly how fast Koufax was. At the very least, the margin of error would be small, we'd at least know it was roughly-96mph or roughly-98 mph, etc. Right? Wouldn't necessarily work with pre-war pitchers where any game footage might be faster/slower than real time because of camera differences. But it should definitely work for Koufax, Gibson, et al. No?
But perhaps I'm missing something. Because if I'm right then this granular visual method could've been used all these decades instead of sloppy radar readings. And I am a science flunkie, it'd be preposterous if my commonsensical visual approach using the video evidence were more accurate than radar but nobody had tried it before. Stranger, stupider things have happened before, though, so you never know. Radar would have been required if you wanted to know during the game, sure. But after the fact, if people are trying to measure the speed as accurately as possible out of curiosity...I just don't get it. "Without the radar, we'd never know how fast they throw, it'd be a mystery." The game is recorded! In real time! The mound has always been the same distance! We've had the ability to measure time in micro-increments for a long time! There must be something I'm missing. It can't be this simple. Or is it.
This game isnt the best of Sandy's pitching, he was really struggling this last game of WS in 65, the film taken of his perfect game in 65 is incredible. I'm pretty sure Casey Stengel knew a thing or two of the previous pitchers since the beginning of the last century and Casey said, Koufax was probably best of all of em including Christy Matthewson.
"He was struggling this last game of WS in 65!". That's quite a high bar considering he shut out the Twins in game 7 on the road with 2 days rest! Maybe his greatest win ever!
@@mikeyposs3132 - from everything i read and heard, I was only 4 at the time, was that Sandy couldnt get his curve over the plate and was mostly just throwin fastballs.
@@mikeyposs3132 - wow, thats fantastic you got to stay home and watch, i did the same thing in the 70's when Bucky Dent smacked that homer and the Yanks beat the Red Sox, though i was a Dodger fan it was still fun watching that game.I totally am jealous you got to see Koufax pitch!!!
That high fastball is so deadly in baseball probably dating back to the damn 1860s. It's just as deadly nowadays especially if you have a good curve ball to mix in. Just a traditionally disturbing combination to hit against. Good news if you're hitting against Koufax, he ends it REALLY fast for you. 😂⚾💨
@@Groucho-tg1tx Well, he developed what was diagnosed as traumatic arthritis in his pitching elbow prior to his final 2 seasons. Also, & this is just my personal opinion, but despite the rumors which surfaced many years later that have led some to believe he likely would have been diagnosed with a torn UCL (aka, Tommy John) nowadays, I don't believe that to be true. As a somewhat self-proclaimed amateur Sandy Koufax historian & a former college pitcher myself, it doesn't make any sense that taking Cortisone shots, among other less effective remedies, would allow any pitcher with a UCL injury to have thrown as dominantly & sustainably as Sandy did during 1965 - 1966 without any surgical intervention. Lastly, Sandy's left elbow would swell up with fluid tremendously as well as its mobility also being severely limited so much that he couldn't fully extend or straighten his arm between starts. Those symptoms don't seem to be representative of any pitching injury I know of & do seem to be highly indicative of arthritis to me so my conclusion is that the reason why Sandy's career was cut so short was more likely due to physiological & genetic conditions rather than the possibility that he threw out his arm solely due to any kind of sport-induced injury.
Notice that Sandy rubs junk on the ball after each time that he touches the brim of his hat. He was notorious for that. And knowing is half the battle.
Koufax wouldn't be as successful today. He would need to develop some other pitches. He only had two pitches. Fastball and curve. His fastball was about 95-97 miles per hour. Still decent by today's standards, but not good enough to avoid getting hit hard.
1) You're only guessing at how hard Koufax threw. But, even if that's correct, he's also maintaining that velo for 9 innings which means he has a lot more in the tank if he's only going 7. 2) Fastball shape means a lot more than pure velo and Koufax was known for his elite IVB. Koufax could also cut his fastball. 3) Koufax threw two different types of curves: 12-6 to righties and one with a sweeper motion. Both are rated as no worse than the second best "curve" of all time. 4) Koufax also threw a forkball and a change. tl;dr Koufax six pitches.
I’m sorry but this guy would get mashed on the daily today, all I see are fastballs in the middle our way outside the box. 8 teams back then narrows the competition and skill vastly
Sandy had a wicked curve ball to boot. Ask Pete Rose, he said Koufax was his most difficult pitcher to bat against, cause his curve ball dropped "like a rock." But true, you never heard about a chang-up or off speed pitche from Sandy, seems to have all been fast balls and curve balls.
Sandy Koufax, had the best 6 year stretch of any pitcher in baseball history.
Kershaw has been better.
As a college sophomore at a top baseball school in the late 60's I was ineligible to play due to a transfer but I did get to pitch in an inter squad game. A few days later I was throwing in the batting cage before a league game but had to sit behind the team when it started due to regulations. A man came up and sat next to me and asked why I wasn't on the bench with the team. I explained and then he said "I'm here to scout (our starting pitcher) but I've been watching you for a while. You throw strikes and you've got a hell of a major league breaking ball, a real knee buckler. I'm the guy who first spotted Sandy Koufax and signed him." I will never know if his story was true but he never said I "threw gas like Koufax" and that's why you will never see me in a video like this. I had the good fortune to see Koufax vs the Cubs and Nolan Ryan and Tom Seaver vs the Padres live and at their best. A gifted major league pitcher is truly poetry in motion.
he was gassed by game 7 in 1965 but still throwing gas
Goat
This man stood a notch above the second greatest pitcher ever. That's saying a lot.
What an honor it would've been to see him pitching in person back then.
He pitched consistently down the stretch, on 2 days rest, to get his team the wins needed. Poll any manager and ask if they needed 1 win, who would they pick to pitch that game. It explains everything you need to know about this pitcher.
The voice of a young Vin Scully too. What a moment in time.
With that last cut by Killebrew you could air-condition a hotel.
Wow! That ball was on top of the hitter really fast! You add his devastating curveball and you see why he was the greatest!
He didn't have a good curve in that game (Game 7 of the 1965 WS) so he threw almost all fastballs.
Since the rubber is still 60'6", can't we get an exact mph measurement from the release of the ball to hitting the mitt? Can't it be visually broken down to hundreths of a second?
Actually, this exact method was tested in 1960 during spring training. You can find the article here! qr.ae/ps2v0B
@@spcooper94 Drysdale's complaint seems legit! Absurd that nobody told them it was a speed test. It was spring training, they probably just threw warm-up tosses or barely faster. Koufax could not possibly have delivered a representative real-game fastball. At least Feller's 98.6 was accurate, though. Koufax had to have been at least mid-upper 90s at his fastest, too.
The TV game footage we have of Koufax isn't slowed down or sped up compared to contemporary TV game footage, right? I don't understand what is stopping people from marking the exact instant the ball leaves his fingers and the exact instant it hits the glove, measuring how long that takes down to a hundreth of a second, and then comparing that to some of today's pitchers using the same exact method. Find a pitch from today that exactly matches up to Koufax's fastest, check the official advanced metrics on that pitch from today, and voila, we'd know pretty much exactly how fast Koufax was. At the very least, the margin of error would be small, we'd at least know it was roughly-96mph or roughly-98 mph, etc. Right?
Wouldn't necessarily work with pre-war pitchers where any game footage might be faster/slower than real time because of camera differences. But it should definitely work for Koufax, Gibson, et al. No?
But perhaps I'm missing something. Because if I'm right then this granular visual method could've been used all these decades instead of sloppy radar readings. And I am a science flunkie, it'd be preposterous if my commonsensical visual approach using the video evidence were more accurate than radar but nobody had tried it before. Stranger, stupider things have happened before, though, so you never know. Radar would have been required if you wanted to know during the game, sure. But after the fact, if people are trying to measure the speed as accurately as possible out of curiosity...I just don't get it. "Without the radar, we'd never know how fast they throw, it'd be a mystery." The game is recorded! In real time! The mound has always been the same distance! We've had the ability to measure time in micro-increments for a long time! There must be something I'm missing. It can't be this simple. Or is it.
Koufax was regularly throwing 91-93 on most fastballs. I think his fastest (known on film) was figured to be 96.
@@joshuaolds6035 You utterly missed my point, and your reply was not worth posting.
This game isnt the best of Sandy's pitching, he was really struggling this last game of WS in 65, the film taken of his perfect game in 65 is incredible. I'm pretty sure Casey Stengel knew a thing or two of the previous pitchers since the beginning of the last century and Casey said, Koufax was probably best of all of em including Christy Matthewson.
"He was struggling this last game of WS in 65!". That's quite a high bar considering he shut out the Twins in game 7 on the road with 2 days rest! Maybe his greatest win ever!
@@mikeyposs3132 - from everything i read and heard, I was only 4 at the time, was that Sandy couldnt get his curve over the plate and was mostly just throwin fastballs.
@@hammer44head yes, only true in game 7 of 65 series! I was 13 and pretended to be sick to stay home and watch! A wonderful memory!
@@mikeyposs3132 - wow, thats fantastic you got to stay home and watch, i did the same thing in the 70's when Bucky Dent smacked that homer and the Yanks beat the Red Sox, though i was a Dodger fan it was still fun watching that game.I totally am jealous you got to see Koufax pitch!!!
For those five seasons; 1962-1966, Sandy was as good as any pitcher who ever lived.
🐐
The greatest lefty ever!
Hard to argue. Debatably the greatest pitcher ever
That high fastball is so deadly in baseball probably dating back to the damn 1860s. It's just as deadly nowadays especially if you have a good curve ball to mix in. Just a traditionally disturbing combination to hit against. Good news if you're hitting against Koufax, he ends it REALLY fast for you. 😂⚾💨
Kofax was also facing legendary hitters... He faced better hitters then today IMHO..
f that,
What you mean?
He threw his arm out the way he pitched.
@@Groucho-tg1tx Well, he developed what was diagnosed as traumatic arthritis in his pitching elbow prior to his final 2 seasons. Also, & this is just my personal opinion, but despite the rumors which surfaced many years later that have led some to believe he likely would have been diagnosed with a torn UCL (aka, Tommy John) nowadays, I don't believe that to be true. As a somewhat self-proclaimed amateur Sandy Koufax historian & a former college pitcher myself, it doesn't make any sense that taking Cortisone shots, among other less effective remedies, would allow any pitcher with a UCL injury to have thrown as dominantly & sustainably as Sandy did during 1965 - 1966 without any surgical intervention. Lastly, Sandy's left elbow would swell up with fluid tremendously as well as its mobility also being severely limited so much that he couldn't fully extend or straighten his arm between starts. Those symptoms don't seem to be representative of any pitching injury I know of & do seem to be highly indicative of arthritis to me so my conclusion is that the reason why Sandy's career was cut so short was more likely due to physiological & genetic conditions rather than the possibility that he threw out his arm solely due to any kind of sport-induced injury.
Notice that Sandy rubs junk on the ball after each time that he touches the brim of his hat. He was notorious for that. And knowing is half the battle.
Koufax threw a 4 seamer and a 12-6 curve. Neither of those pitches benefit from greasing the ball.
Koufax wouldn't be as successful today. He would need to develop some other pitches. He only had two pitches. Fastball and curve. His fastball was about 95-97 miles per hour. Still decent by today's standards, but not good enough to avoid getting hit hard.
1) You're only guessing at how hard Koufax threw. But, even if that's correct, he's also maintaining that velo for 9 innings which means he has a lot more in the tank if he's only going 7.
2) Fastball shape means a lot more than pure velo and Koufax was known for his elite IVB. Koufax could also cut his fastball.
3) Koufax threw two different types of curves: 12-6 to righties and one with a sweeper motion. Both are rated as no worse than the second best "curve" of all time.
4) Koufax also threw a forkball and a change.
tl;dr Koufax six pitches.
@markuyehara7880 I googled Koufax's pitches, and it doesn't mention a forkball or change. Maybe you have a different source.
Uhmm actually we know way more about nutrition and science nowadays so I doubt Sandy would be good today😊
I’m sorry but this guy would get mashed on the daily today, all I see are fastballs in the middle our way outside the box. 8 teams back then narrows the competition and skill vastly
Maybe conduct a greater film study before jumping to conclusions. But thanks for watching
You’re a no nothing
Sandy had a wicked curve ball to boot. Ask Pete Rose, he said Koufax was his most difficult pitcher to bat against, cause his curve ball dropped "like a rock." But true, you never heard about a chang-up or off speed pitche from Sandy, seems to have all been fast balls and curve balls.