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More copies of this ISBN:Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacyby Jane Leavy
Staff Pick
"Koufax spans two distinct eras in baseball and in America," Jane Leavy notes. "In virtually ever way that matters, ethnically and economically, medically and journalistically, he offers a way to measure where we've been, what we've come to, what we've lost." Indeed, though it's undeniably a treasure for baseball fans, Leavy's book transcends the pitcher's personal biography entirely, circling around her subject to register his profound impact on both sport and country. Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:In an era when too many heroes have been toppled from too many pedestals, Sandy Koufax stands apart and alone, a legend who declined his own celebrity. As a pitcher, he was sublime, the ace of baseball lore. As a human being, he aspired to be the one thing his talent and his fame wouldn't allow: a regular guy. A Brooklyn kid, he was the product of the sedate and modest fifties who came to define and dominate baseball in the sixties. In Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy, former award-winning Washington Post sportswriter Jane Leavy delivers an uncommon baseball book, vividly re-creating the Koufax era, when presidents were believed and pitchers aspired to go the distance. He was only a teenager when Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley proclaimed him "the Great Jewish Hope" of the franchise. But it wasn't until long after the team had abandoned Brooklyn that the man became the myth. Old-fashioned in his willingness to play when he was injured and in his acute sense of responsibility to his team, Koutax answered to an authority higher than manager Walter Alston. When he refused to pitch the opening game of the 1965 World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, he inadvertently made himself a religious icon and an irrevocably public figure. A year later, he was gone — done with baseball at age thirty. No other sports hero had retired so young, so well, or so completely. Despite Sandy Koufax's best efforts to protect his privacy, his legend has grown larger ever since. Part biography, part cultural history, Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy gets as close to that legend as he will allow. Through meticulous reporting and interviews with five hundred of his friends, teammates, and opponents, Leavy penetrates the mythology to discover a man more than worthy of myth. Synopsis:Synopsis:An award-winning sportswriter presents this fascinating and eye-opening biography of Dodger great Sandy Koufax, a pitcher who changed the game of baseball forever. Leavy reveals the man behind the myth, creating an unprecedented portrait of a man described by one former Dodger as the most misunderstood man in baseball. 8-page photo insert.
About the AuthorJane Leavy is an award-winning former sportswriter and feature writer for the Washington Post and author of the critically acclaimed comic novel Squeeze Play. She lives in Washington, D.C. What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!
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