Talk:Sandy Koufax

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	Sandy Koufax is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do.
	This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on September 12, 2005.
Article Milestones Date Process Result May 31, 2005 Featured article candidate Promoted March 8, 2007 Featured article review Kept Current Status: Featured article

This article is within the scope of multiple WikiProjects Click [show] for further details
This article must adhere to the policy on biographies of living persons. Controversial material of any kind that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous. If such material is repeatedly inserted or there are other concerns relative to this policy, report it on the living persons biographies noticeboard. This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page. Biography Portal FA This article has been rated as FA-Class on the Project's quality scale. [FAQ] See comments This article is supported by the Sports and games work group.
This article is part of WikiProject Southern California, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to Southern California on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit this article, or visit the project page to join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. FA This article has been rated as FA-Class on the quality scale. Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the importance scale.
Portal Sandy Koufax is maintained by WikiProject Baseball, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of baseball and baseball-related topics. If you would like to participate, visit the project page, or contribute to the discussion FA This article has been rated as FA-class on the quality scale. High This article has been rated as high-importance on the importance scale. Article Grading: The article has been rated for quality and/or importance but has no comments yet. If appropriate, please review the article and then leave comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and what work it will need. WikiProject Baseball To-do: edit  Here are some tasks you can do to help with WikiProject Baseball: The current Wikipedia:WikiProject Baseball/Article improvement drive article is New York Yankees. Requests: Keith Bucktrot, Rip Radcliff, Sandwich Pick, Trey Hillman Attention: 1873 New York Mutuals, 1947 Little League World Series, Bobby Cox, China national baseball team, National Association as a major league Expand: 2007 Major League Baseball season, Kansai Big Six Baseball League, Players League Stubs: 2005 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, Batboy, Catch (baseball), Check-swing, International Baseball Federation, Korean Baseball Organization, Korean Series Images: Appeal play, Charging the mound, Corked bat, Error, Wild pitch Quality watch: 8 FA-Class Baseball articles - 6 GA-Class Baseball articles.
Radio Portal This article is supported by the Radio WikiProject. This project provides a central approach to Radio-related subjects on Wikipedia. Please participate by editing the article attached to this page and help us assess and improve articles to good and 1.0 standards. Visit the wikiproject page for more details. FA This article has been rated as FA-Class on the Project's quality scale. See comments
This article is part of the New York State WikiProject, an attempt to better organize and improve articles related to the U.S. state of New York. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. FA This article has been rated as FA-Class on the quality scale. Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance scale.
Sandy Koufax is part of WikiProject College Basketball, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to college basketball on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale. Please rate the article and then leave a short summary here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article. ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.

This article has been selected for Version 0.5 and the next release version of Wikipedia. This Everydaylife article has been rated FA-Class on the assessment scale.

Contents 1 Great 2 First ML strikeout 3 Deletion of fan site 4 Spring training and pay dispute 5 Scholarship at UC 6 Opening Change Suggestion 7 Maybe Pop Culture Reference Section? 8 Yom Kipur 9 Version 0.5 Nominations 10 Sandy Koufax: The Baseball Card 11 Scholarship at UC 12 State of the Article 13 Separate article for Sandy's perfect game? 14 Reference for statistics 15 1999 All-Star Game

[edit] Great

This Story is Great! It is very inspirative! This is a thousand times better than to see a movie. Martin R. Rodriguez

[edit] First ML strikeout

The Koufax article says his first ML strikeout victim was Thompson. Hank Aaron's article says it was Aaron. I don't know so I cannot fix it. Koufaxfan

[edit] Deletion of fan site

Who keeps deleting my fan site http://www.sevastudio.com/sandy ?

I do. It's a site mostly of advertisments with no new content. The other sites listed here are from very reliable sources. No other sites are referenced in the body of the text like you seem to want to do in the opening paragraph. I will continue to delete the links to your site as long as you keep putting them up. Gorrister 20:59, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

I thank you for coming forward, and upon inspection of your profile, I see you are a thoughtful member of the wiki community. However, I object to your deleting of my link in the external links section. Other sites have far more ads and more intrusive ones. I do agree that external links in the body are just bad; i must admit i did it to spite the person that was deleting my links.

If you must put your link in the external link section, then please put it at the bottom, after the official sites. Gorrister 22:48, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Spring training and pay dispute

In 1964 Koufax and fellow Dodger pitcher Don Drysdale refused to go to spring training in a dispute over pay. It may be the first successful attempt at bucking the so-called reserve clause, which was eventually struck down in the 1970s, leading to free agency for athletes.

It was 1966 actually, but its now included

[edit] Scholarship at UC

It says that Sandy received a scholarship to UC for basketball, but he was actually a walk-on who received a partial scholarship after he tried out.

The Baseball Hall Of Fame describe him as having "attended the University of Cincinnati on a basketball scholarship" : http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/hofers_and_honorees/hofer_bios/koufax_sandy.htm

I know it, but according to Jane Leavy's "Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy," he earned a partial scholarship after trying out. Interestingly UC lists as a famous Bearcat, but he never graduated and I think was only there a year.

Ken Burns' "Baseball" says Koufax did not actually like baseball and actually preferred basketball. Trekphiler 17:12, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Opening Change Suggestion

The opening states: "...is a former left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball..." This to a grammer purist may indicate that he was once a left-handed pitcher, but is no longer (ambidextrous). Perhaps this should be reworded to say, "...is a left-handed pitcher who played in Major League Baseball..." which would preserve his left-handedness, as it's rather important--and one of the reasons he is considered "special."206.156.242.39 13:25, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

"Left-hand former pitcher" sounds weird and awkward. "Former left-hand pitcher" is just fine. Left-hand is modifying "pitcher", not "former". Sandy's still left-handed, but is no longer a pitcher, hence he is no longer a left-hand pitcher. However, that's the least of our worries. Since someone decided to make this a featured article, various morons have been "inspired" to screw around with the article. The "brains" behind this website (pardon the overstatement) should lock an article if they intend to feature it. Wahkeenah 17:26, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

I think "former left-handed pitcher" seems OK; if he was somehow no longer left-handed, I would think "formerly left-handed" might be the way to put it - although that might imply he was still an active pitcher. (If he was actually right-handed, yet only pitched left-handed, this might be even more awkward to phrase.) MisfitToys 19:06, September 12, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Maybe Pop Culture Reference Section?

I recall reading/seeing his name crop up frequently in a variety of places. I believe he's also featured in some sports games, although I can't quite remember any specifically. Might be something interesting to add to the article, though.--Deridolus 22:09, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Yom Kipur

Is it really objective to say that Koufax was "rightly" criticized for refusing to play on Yom Kippur? If there are circumstances that would justify this (such as that he did not really sit out because of Yom Kipur, but for some other reason), then they should be mentioned. I hardly think that it is right for anyone to say that a man is rightly criticized if he put his religious obligations before his professional, even if those professional obligations are very great indeed.--Corbmobile

[edit] Version 0.5 Nominations

This article is considered to fall outside the scope of the Version 0.5 test release, since this version only includes a limited number of articles. It is now being held ready for renomination for a later version such as Version 1.0. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 05:58, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sandy Koufax: The Baseball Card

I was wondering would any of you know anything about this card and about how much it would be worth? There is no year on the card, but the last date mentioned on the card is 1961 (the year he struck out 269 men). If anyone knows anything let me know. I am User:rivkaRebecca (I'm not logged in). Thanks 209.136.211.32 18:06, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Scholarship at UC

I have found a source saying that he attended UC on a basketball scholarship. However, i'm pretty sure that what was previously there, is actually correct. Here is what i have removed:

Despite his athletic skill and versatility, Koufax started at the in the fall of 1953 without an athletic scholarship. He was a walk-on for the freshman basketball team, and a complete unknown to coach Ed Jucker. After watching him practice, Jucker got him awarded a work-study scholarship.

Since I didn't have a chance to veryify the list of sources now in place, i'm hoping someone can substantiate the above claim and put it back in the article. // Tecmobowl 02:07, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] State of the Article

I'm not really sure how this article ever reached featured status. I'm glad to see some continued work on it but more needs to be done. I also think it should have its' featured status revoked. I started the improvement with the Early life section but i do not think it is up to the standards at this point in time. I'm curious to hear more thoughts. // Tecmobowl 18:26, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I voted against this article becoming featured for a couple of reasons, most importantly because it was pretty much a precis of the (excellent) Jane Leavy bio. of Koufax. Much of her book comprised running accounts of several of his games, which is why this article has an inordinate number of specific play-by-play descriptions. The article has NOT improved with time, and I don't think it is FA-worthy.Sfahey 19:13, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree, I think it should be put of for WP:FAR. Vicarious 09:05, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I also agree, I myself have be wondering how an article with so many unsourced statements could be a FA. Darwin's Bulldog 03:36, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Look at Restoration Literature (featured today) and many others it appears inline citations are optional. I disagree but there is no one format for a featured article. If you think this one is bad look up Suzanne Lenglen which has a two sentence lead, no inline citations, and one reference listed. Quadzilla99 05:34, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

As I've starting looking through Leavy for references, I'm finding several examples where the wording has been lifted directly from Leavy. Cleaning up the article and eradicating the plagiarism is going to take more work than I had anticipated. BRMo 04:23, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Separate article for Sandy's perfect game?

One of the criticisms raised in Wikipedia:Featured article review/Sandy Koufax is directed at the long play-by-play descriptions of a few notable games. This criticism seems especially relevant for the section Sandy Koufax#Perfection, which runs seven paragraphs and impedes the flow of the article.

When a subtopic becomes too large relative to its importance in the article, an article on the subtopic is often introduced, allowing the main article to touch on it briefly and refer the interested reader to other article. I'd like to suggest we create an article, "Sandy Koufax's perfect game," and move most of the "Perfection" section to that article.

It would be unusual to have an article on a single baseball game, but I'll note that several articles have been written on individual all-star games (for example 2006 Major League Baseball All-Star Game), and there are also articles on World Series that provide a lot of information on the individual games. Considering the rarity of perfect games and the interest in Koufax's perfect game, I think an article on this topic would pass the notability test. Is moving this information to a new article agreeable? BRMo 00:47, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I certainly think it's possible, but it's an uphill battle. It's going to have to be impeccably sourced, and from more than just Leavy. Plus, I'm sure there's somebody out there who will AfD the article on instinct, and argue that it opens up the door to articles on every marginally historic game, from Mark Whiten's four-homer day to the time that guy hit for the cycle (I'm not agreeing with the argument, just anticipating it). If you're serious about starting this article, I'd be happy to try and dig up some references proving that this game is notable beyond its perfectness, and doesn't justify an article on Tom Browning's game. Djrobgordon 16:57, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I think we could even make a case for articles on all 17 perfect games. After all, Wikipedia has 398 articles on Simpsons episodes. BRMo 18:02, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

There are numerous sources that include boxscores, and game accounts can be retrieved from Sporting News stories, among other places. I don't think this would be problematic. One difference between perfect games and those such as Whiten's is that in Whiten's instance, only four at bats matter, while for a perfect game, all 27 plate appearances by the losing team are vital. It seems that we're now seeing articles started on every season by every pro and major college team (something else I don't favor; see Category:2007 in baseball and Category:2006 NCAA Division I FBS football season for examples), so 17 articles for major league perfect games doesn't seem unreasonable by comparison. MisfitToys 21:53, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reference for statistics

I requested a reference for the following sentence: "Among NL pitchers with at least 2,000 innings pitched who have debuted since 1913, he has both the highest career winning percentage (.655) and the lowest career ERA (2.76); his 2,396 career strikeouts ranked 7th in major league history upon his retirement, and trailed only Warren Spahn's total of 2,583 among left-handers." Misfit Toys deleted the tag with the following comment: "I don't think a reference is needed for this; it's an easily checkable statistical fact."

Just how is it "easily" checkable? I looked up the career leader boards on baseball-reference.com; Koufax is ranked 25th in winning percentage, 90th in ERA, and 38th in strikeouts. I'm not aware of any leaderboards that only show NL leaders. So, taking the example of ERA, I suppose I could go through all 89 names ahead of his and check whether each pitcher debuted before 1913, pitched fewer than 2,000 innings (since bbref uses a 1,000 inning cut-off), or pitched in the AL. Of course, some pitchers played in both leagues, and I'm not aware that they give their league-by-league career totals, but I could feed the data into a spreadsheet and calculate their NL ERAs based on the data that are available. So, yes it's checkable, but not what I'd call "easy." I'm requesting a reference because the statement doesn't seem easy to check. (I'm aware that there are database products available that can make checking these statements easy, but the products I'm aware of are not free, and asking the reader to check an assertation through a database inquiry seems contrary to the spirit of WP:NOR. — BRMo 23:22, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

First, I thought the tag was only seeking a reference for the Spahn remark. Second, I doubt there are any other sources that specifically mention this; I figured it out using by cross-checking the records as you indicated, which doesn't count as OR; see the section which reads: "Research that consists of collecting and organizing information from existing primary and/or secondary sources is, of course, strongly encouraged. All articles on Wikipedia should be based on information collected from published primary and secondary sources. This is not "original research"; it is "source-based research", and it is fundamental to writing an encyclopedia." The statement in the article is not a debatable one, although it might take an hour or so for someone to check if they wanted to. (BTW, 1913 was used as the cutoff because it eliminates pitchers of the dead ball era when ERAs were lower.) MisfitToys 23:43, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

If I've done the calculation right, Tom Seaver had a lower NL career ERA than Koufax (2.73 vs. 2.76). Seaver's overall MLB ERA was higher (2.86), but it was raised by his AL pitching during 1984-86. All of which just goes to show how hard it is to verify these kinds of statements. BRMo 03:40, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I missed that; I double-checked against Seaver's listing in the 1984 Sporting News Baseball Register (not hard to verify, actually; took maybe 30 seconds). My mistake. I'll re-add a mention, however, in a corrected form, as Koufax did hold the record for several years. MisfitToys 21:09, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 1999 All-Star Game

Baseball Almanac states that he did appear at the game; perhaps he attended the game but didn't take the field for the formal ceremony? I couldn't find anything about it in the L.A. Times coverage from the next two days, though there was a special piece by Roger Kahn about Koufax in the July 15 edition. MisfitToys 23:31, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Salon.com says "Yogi Berra, Sandy Koufax or Mike Schmidt...were also on the field that night." With two sources saying he was there, I'm going to drop the sentence. BRMo 02:46, 17 February 2007 (UTC)