The Green Weenie: Sandy Koufax...A Gnat's Eyelash (And a Few Bucks) From Being a Pirate

Sunday, January 14, 2018

Sandy Koufax...A Gnat's Eyelash (And a Few Bucks) From Being a Pirate

There are two things that are generally under the radar concerning Sandy Koufax - he never pitched an inning in the minors and he was very nearly a Pittsburgh Pirate. This tale explains both.

Sanford "Sandy" Koufax was a high school pitcher with a great heater which he unfortunately couldn't aim very well. The Brooklyn Lafayette HS athlete was better known as a hoopster who could dunk as a guard back in the early 50s. He walked on and later landed a partial basketball scholarship at the University of Cincinnati.

Sandy had a basketball jones early on (photo via Horsehide Trivia)

Ed Jucker was his freshman basketball coach and also the Bearcat baseball skipper. He took Koufax with him on a weekend baseball trip when the Cincy pitching staff was dinged up, and he showed well. Sandy continued tossing in the summer for the hometown semi-pro league, where he was noticed by several teams. The local clubs eyeballed him, of course - the Yankees offered him a standard $4,000 player contract and ticket to Class D. He turned it down; not only were the Bronx Bombers cheap, but they sent a Jewish scout to talk to the family, and the Koufax clan thought that was a condescending move.

Then he got a tryout at the Polo Grounds with the Giants; he got off to a bad start by forgetting his glove and then it got worse as he zipped the ball everywhere but over the plate. They said "Don't call us..."

The team that came closest to signing him away from the Dodgers was the Pirates. Regional scout Ed McCarrick was tipped about Koufax by a call from a civilian bird dog and so Clyde Sukeforth, head scout, and Branch Rickey Jr. went to see a Coney Island League game (Sandy pitched for the Parkviews) at Dyker Field. Koufax got banged around - he was ill that day - but Sukeforth, like McCarrick, noted not only Koufax's cheese but his developing curve. He thought enough of him to arrange a Forbes Field audition. But Junior was not impressed, and that would later haunt the Bucs.

The 18-year-old lefty showed his stuff to Branch Rickey, chief scout Clyde Sukeforth and various Bucco big wheels, sharing the date with IF Deacon Jones, a minor league hitting legend who ended up a classic AAAA player. During his session, Koufax's rising fastball broke the thumb of Sam Narron, the team's bullpen coach. GM Branch Rickey supposedly told Sukeforth that Koufax had “the greatest arm I've ever seen."

Rickey (known to many as "El Cheapo") debated signing him, and talked it over with the staff, getting raves from all but his son, which probably served as a damper on the bid. He offered him $15,000, and Sandy took the deal home to ponder, but the Koufax gang deemed it too low. That was an era when the Bucs were tight with a buck as a team, and Rickey himself was feeling his way around the bonus game. To add salt to the wound, Jones also turned down an offer, opting to attend college.

Al Campanis, then a Dodger scout, was put on Sandy's scent by Jimmy Murphy, who covered school sports for the Brooklyn Eagle & was a sports shop owner ("I thought his name was Kovacs" Campanis said). After the tout, he dug out an old, buried scouting report from college and called him for a tryout following the Pittsburgh audition. They had their look a few days later; Koufax's rising fast ball wowed him and catcher Rube Walker. He sang the southpaw's praises to GM Buzzy Bavasi, and they worked out a deal - $6,000 as an annual salary for 1955 and '56 with a $14K bonus, reaching a handshake deal with Sandy's family.

Sandy Koufax 1955 Topps...it could have read Pittsburgh Pirates...

Milwaukee, also in the hunt, later offered $30-35,000 and the Pirates, who had gotten the OK to open the purse strings from owner John Galbreath, said they would top the best offer for Koufax by $5,000. But Sandy's family said they had a deal with Brooklyn, and he officially signed with the Da Bums in mid-December. "One reason we got him" Campanis admitted "is that if Sandy signed with the Dodgers, his parents would be able to see him play in Brooklyn..." Timing proved to be everything as the Dodgers left Brooklyn for the coast after 1957 and Koufax pitched just three years in his hometown before hitting his stride on the left coast.

Because Koufax's signing grease was greater than $5,000, he qualified as a "bonus baby" and the Dodgers had to keep him on the major league roster for at least two years. To make roster room for him, the Dodgers optioned pitcher and future Hall of Fame manager Tommy Lasorda to the Montreal Royals of the International League, where he joined Roberto Clemente (Rocky Nelson and Gino Cimoli, future Pirates, were also on the club). Lasorda often joked that it took Koufax to keep him off the Dodger pitching staff.

Koufax, unlike Lasorda, never did see the minors although it took him until 1961 to command his wicked repertoire. But from then until he retired with a spent (and bent) arm after the 1966 campaign, he went 129-47, 2.19, averaging a strikeout per inning and dropping his walks from five per game in his first six years to two every nine innings over his last six seasons on his road to Cooperstown.

It was a big fail for Pittsburgh; imagine Koufax with Vern Law and Bob Friend as the top of the rotation with ElRoy Face to close. The Pirates ponied up when they gave Dick Groat $35-40,000 in bonus money back in 1952 and Lauren Pepper $35,000 in '54. For that amount or less, they could have had Sandy Koufax, proving again that money talks...