Dispatches from the Sporting Life (6 page)

Projecting an all-American image or not, Koufax hasn’t one unkind or, come to think of it, perceptive, word to say about the game or any of his teammates. Anecdotes with a built-in twinkle about this player or
that unfailingly end with “That’s John [Roseboro],” or “That’s Lou [Johnson],” and one of his weightiest observations runs “Life is odd,” which,
pace
Fresco Thompson, is not enough to imply alienation.

Still true to the all-American image, Koufax writes, nicely understating the case, that though there are few automobiles he couldn’t afford today, nothing has given him more joy than the maroon Rollfast bicycle his grandparents gave him for his tenth birthday when he was just another Rockville Center kid. “An automobile is only a means of transportation. A bike to a ten-year-old boy is a magic carpet and a status symbol and a gift of love.” Self-conscious, perhaps, about his towering salary, which he clearly deserves, considering what a draw he is at the gate, he claims that most of the players were for him and Drysdale during their 1966 holdout. “The players felt—I hope—that the more we got paid, the more they would get paid in the future,” which may be stretching a point some.

Koufax was not an instant success in baseball. He was, to begin with, an inordinately wild pitcher, and the record for his 1955 rookie year was 2–2. The following year he won two more games, but lost four, and even in 1960 his record was only 8–13. Koufax didn’t arrive until 1961, with an 18–13 record, and though some accounts tell of his dissatisfaction with the earlier years and even report a bitter run-in with the Dodgers’ general manager, Buzzy Bavasi—because Koufax felt he was not getting sufficient
work—he understandably soft-pedals the story in his autobiography. Koufax is also soft on Alston, who, according to other sources, doubted that the pitcher would ever make it.

If Koufax came into his own in 1961—becoming a pitcher, he writes, as distinct from a thrower—then his transmogrification goes some way to belie the all-American image; in fact there is something in the story that will undoubtedly appeal to anti-Semites who favour the Jewish-conspiracy theory of history. Koufax, according to his own account, was helped most by two other Jews on the team, Allan Roth, the resident statistician, and Norm Sherry, a catcher. The turning point, Koufax writes, came during spring training, at an exhibition game, when Sherry told him, “Don’t try to throw hard, because when you force your fastball you’re always high with it. Just this once, try it my way….”

“I had heard it all before,” Koufax writes. “Only, for once, it wasn’t blahblahblah. For once I was rather convinced….” Koufax pitched Sherry’s way and ended up with a seven-inning no-hitter and went on from there to superstardom. The unasked question is, Would Norm Sherry have done as much for Don Drysdale?

“Koufax the Incomparable” appeared in
Commentary,
November 1966, and led to a heated correspondence:

As a professional athlete in the highest sense of the word, Hank Greenberg would never have purposely failed to tie or break Ruth’s record. The material gain he could have realized by attaining this goal would have been matched only by the great prestige and glory that naturally come along with the magical figure of sixty home runs. Greenberg failed only because the pressure, magnified tenfold by the press, weighed too heavily on his shoulders. Very rarely is one able to hit the ball into the seats when he is seeking to do so. Home runs come from natural strokes of the bat, and Greenberg’s stroke in those last five games was anything but natural. The pitchers, also, were not giving the Detroit slugger anything too good to hit, not wishing to have the dubious honour of surrendering number sixty. In short, it was the pressure that made Greenberg’s bat too heavy, not the political atmosphere. Perhaps Mr. Richler should check his facts before his next article on the National Pastime.

SAMUEL HEFT, LONG BEACH, N.Y., WROTE:

I am stunned by…some startling statements made by Mordecai Richler….

Even to hint at the possibility that the Hall of Fame baseball player Hank Greenberg “held back” in his efforts to break Babe Ruth’s home run record, for any reason, is shocking. To state that Greenberg considered it would be “pushy” of him to do so, is almost too silly for comment. I shudder to think of a player in the Hall of Fame being accused of not giving his all….

Richler states that “many boys found opposition
at home” when they went out for sports. This is understandable. Our parents were not sports-minded, because of their European sufferings….I’m

sure our people didn’t get many opportunities to play ball in the
shtetl,
while running away from pogroms.

I disagree that there is a Jewish problem in baseball today. If Walter Alston keeps a Jewish calendar on his desk … it is because he is a good administrator and needs this reminder in his scheduling of pitchers’ rotations, and not because of “sensitivity.”

So far as playing baseball on the Jewish holidays goes, and yelling
pipickhead
at Kermit, this is not a baseball problem. I see with my own eyes too many Jews of all denominations mowing lawns, shopping, and doing numerous other chores on the
Shabbes….

Mr. Richler’s article may do serious harm in the struggle against discrimination…. Maybe, according to Richler, even Kermit Kitman might have been a good hitter, but he was afraid the Montreal non-Jewish population would think he was “pushy.”

E. KINTISCH, ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA, WROTE:

…Richler very obviously doesn’t think much of Koufax. Then why did he bother reading the Koufax book, or writing about it?…

JEROME HOLTZMAN,
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES,
CHICAGO, ILL., WROTE:

I am but one of approximately two to three dozen Jewish baseball writers—writers from big-city newspapers—who cover major league baseball teams from the beginning of spring training through the World Series—and as such should inform your
readers that Mordecai Richler was off base quite a few times in his “Koufax the Incomparable.”

Richler indicates that Hank Greenberg was “tragically inhibited by his Jewish heritage” and thus held back and hit fifty-eight home runs instead of breaking Babe Ruth’s record of sixty because the breaking of such a record “…would be considered pushy of him…and not a good thing for the Jews.” Balderdash! Greenberg didn’t hit sixty because pitchers stopped giving him anything good to hit at—probably because he was Jewish, and probably also because no pitcher wants to be remembered for throwing historic home-run balls. We must assume also that the pressure was a factor, as it always is; what also hurt was that a season-ending doubleheader (in Cleveland) had to be moved to a bigger ballpark with a longer left field, and that the second game wasn’t played to a nine-inning finish….

I agree that the
Time
magazine cover story on Koufax was distorted, but to accuse
Time
of anti-Semitism is presumptuous.
Time
has erred on plenty of other sports cover stories, as have many of the other slicks. The image of Koufax as an intellectual (which he is not) was featured, I suspect, because it made “a good angle” and probably because a
Time
stringer spotted a bookshelf. Moreover, that Koufax likes his privacy isn’t unusual. Many star players, Feller, Musial, Williams
et al.,
roomed alone in their later years and did their best to avoid the mob.

Author Richler is looking too hard, also, when he emphasizes that Koufax, in his autobiography, points out that he was helped most by two other
Jews … Sherry, a catcher, advised Koufax not to throw hard, advice I’m sure Sherry has given to dozens and dozens of Gentile pitchers, and advice which previously had been given to Koufax by Gentile coaches. Sherry simply happened to mention this at precisely the right moment, before a meaningless exhibition game, and when Koufax was…eager to listen….

As for Allan Roth, he was a statistician with the Dodgers, the only full-time statistician employed by a big league club. Roth borders on genius in this field. It was his job to keep and translate his findings to the Dodger players and the Dodger management. Whatever information Roth gave Koufax (and I don’t know what this was), I’m sure was part of the routine. Richler’s attitude is disgusting if he thinks that Roth would favour Koufax because both are Jews. In effect, Richler is saying that Roth would withhold significant statistics from Gentiles such as Drysdale, Newcombe, or Podres.

I agree that from a so-called Jewish standpoint, the Koufax book is disappointing, and I agree with Richler that Koufax protesteth too much in emphasizing that he is not anti-athlete. It is unfortunate that Koufax didn’t control his anger, not only at the
Time
story but at several minor pieces that preceded it. In his book, Koufax tells us almost nothing about his Jewishness; that he is Jewish is mentioned almost in passing. But he doesn’t owe us any detailed explanations. As a baseball book, and as a text in pitching, I found it excellent.

I should think that
Commentary,
in this rare instance when it did touch on sports, could have
done better than offer the long-distance musings of a novelist….

AVRAM M. DUCOVNY, NEW YORK CITY, WRITES:

I am shocked that Mr. Richler in his treatise on Curve Balls: Are They Good or Bad for the Jews? overlooked Willie Davis’s three errors in one inning behind Koufax in the 1966 World Series—which was one of the most flagrant acts of Negro anti-Semitism since the panic of 1908.

He does get somewhere in pointing out the Jewish-conspiracy angle in the Norm Sherry–Koufax cabal; however, he does not really go deep enough. What of Norm’s brother Larry—also a Dodger pitcher at the time—stopped from the advice that made a super start because of piddling sibling rivalry? There’s one for Bill Stern!

And yea, verily, let us weep for the likes of Don Drysdale—disenfranchised WASP—alone in a sea of Gentile coaches whose knowledge of baseball never had the benefit of the secret indoctrination into the
Protocols of the Elders of Swat.
By the way, what is that resident genius, Norm Sherry, doing today? Have I somehow missed his name among the current great pitching coaches of baseball?

And finally, finally, the true story of the whispered Greenberg caper, wherein he was visited by representatives of the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee and Congress, and the many, many Friends of the Hebrew University, who said unto him: “Hershel, thou shalt not Swat; whither Ruth goest, thou goest not.”

I am looking forward with great anticipation to
Mr. Richler’s exposure of Mike Epstein (the self-labelled “super-Jew” rookie of the Baltimore Orioles) who all “insiders” know is a robot created at a secret plant in the Negev and shipped to Baltimore for obvious chauvinistic reasons.

FINALLY, THAT VERY GOOD WRITER DAN WAKEFIELD WROTE A MOST AMUSING LETTER THAT BEGAN:

I greatly enjoyed Mordecai Richler’s significant comments on Sandy Koufax, and the profound questions he raised about the role of Jews in American sports. Certainly much research still needs to be done in this area, and I hope that some of the provocative points raised by Richler will be picked up and followed through by our social scientists, many of whom are capable of turning, say, a called strike into a three-volume study of discrimination in the subculture of American athletics.

I REPLIED:

The crucial question is, Did Hank Greenberg hold back (possibly for our sake), or was the pressure too much for him? Mr. Adesman, obviously a worldly man, suggests that Greenberg couldn’t have held back, because of “the material gain he could have realized” by hitting sixty home runs. This, it seems to me, is gratuitously attributing coarse motives to an outstanding Jewish sportsman.

Mr. Heft is stunned by my flattering notion that Greenberg might have placed the greater Jewish good above mere athletic records and goes on to nibble at a theory of Jewish anti-gamesmanship based on our parents’ “running away from pogroms.” This
theory, clearly unattractive if developed to its logical big league conclusion, would surely have resulted in a more noteworthy Jewish record on the base paths. Mr. Heft is also of the opinion that if Walter Alston keeps a Jewish calendar on his desk, it is because he is a good administrator. Yom Kippur, Mr. Heft, comes but once a year, and surely Alston doesn’t require a calendar to remind him of one date. If Koufax had also been unwilling to take his turn on the mound on Tishah-b’Ab or required, say, a
chometz-free
resin bag for the Passover week, then Alston would have had a case. As things stand, the calendar must be reckoned ostentatious.

About Kermit Kitman: I’m afraid his poor hitting had no racial origins, but was a failure all his own, regardless of race, colour, or creed. His superb fielding, however, was another matter: a clear case of the overcompensating Jew. Briefly put, Kitman was a notorious
chapper
—a grabber, that is to say, any fly ball hit into the outfield had to be
his
fly ball, if you know what I mean.

Mr. Kintisch errs. I admire Koufax enormously and shall miss him sorely this season. He was undoubtedly the greatest pitcher of our time, and yet—and yet—now that he has retired so young, is it possible that carping anti-Semites have already begun the whispering campaign: great, yes, but
sickly.
Without the staying power of Warren Spahn. An unnatural athlete.

Jerome Holtzman, a dazzling intellectual asset to the sports department of the
Chicago Sun-Times,
raises darker questions. Greenberg, he says, would never have held back. He “didn’t hit sixty because
pitchers stopped giving him anything good to hit at—
probably because he was Jewish….
” Now there’s something nasty even I didn’t think of: the possibility that Bob Feller, Red Ruffing, and others threw bigoted anti-Semitic curveballs at Hank Greenberg while a later generation of American League pitchers fed Roger Maris pro-Gentile pitches…. Next season I would implore Holtzman and other Jewish baseball writers to keep a sharp eye on the racial nature of pitches thrown to (or God forbid, even at) Mike Epstein.