1955 DODGERS - Koufax's Debut
19-year-old Sandy Koufax pitched professional baseball for the first time 70 years ago last night
MILWAUKEE COUNTY STADIUM - June 25, 1955
The Sports Time Traveler has been following the 1955 Dodgers day-by-day since spring training.
Yesterday was a real treat. I got to experience the very first professional outing of Sandy Koufax.
Koufax was signed to a $20,000 “bonus baby” contract by the Dodgers last year. Under baseball rules in 1955, if you give a player such a large signing bonus they must be on the major league roster.
As a result, Koufax has not played a single game in the minor leagues. He has just sat on the Dodgers’ bench all season watching every game. It must have been fun at least for Koufax to watch. The Dodgers got off to the hottest start of any team in the past 70 years, and they are in first place with a record of 49 - 17, and 13 games in front of the Braves and the Cubs. The defending World Series champion New York Giants are 16 games back.
Yesterday, with the Dodgers down 7 - 1 going into the bottom of the 5th inning, Dodger’s manager Walt Alston decided it was finally time to “take the wraps off Sandy Koufax,” as The New York Times beat writer John Drebinger wrote.
The 19-year-old Koufax, who has only previously pitched in little league and for the University of Cincinnati, promptly gave up a single to the first batter he faced, Johnny Logan. Next up was Eddie Mathews, one of the top home run hitters in baseball the past 2 seasons with 47 in 1953 and 40 in 1954. Earlier in the game, Mathews hit his 16th homer of this season off one of the Dodgers’ ace pitchers, Carl Erksine. Mathews hit a grounder to Koufax. It was a perfect double play ball, but Koufax threw the ball into center field, and suddenly there were Braves’ runners on 2nd and 3rd.
Up next came one of the best young hitters in baseball, 21-year-old Henry Aaron. Aaron had hit his 12th homer of the season earlier in the game off Erskine, knocking Carl out of the game. And Aaron is now batting .327, 6th best in the National League. Koufax walked Aaron to load the bases.
Next up was the man that likely still gives Dodgers’ fans shudders when they hear his name. And I don’t just mean in 1955, I mean in the present time in the mid-2020s. It was Bobby Thomson - the man who hit the “shot heard round the world,” in 1951 that cost the Dodgers the pennant. Thomson had been traded to the Braves by the Giants in 1954 in an effort to shore up the Giants’ pitching staff.
Koufax struck out Thomson.
That strikeout was of no solace to anyone rooting for the Dodgers in this game. But for Koufax, who lived in Brooklyn when Thomson hit the infamous 1951 home run that broke the hearts of Dodgers’ fans, it must have been a bit of a thrill to fan the man who has given Dodgers’ supporters nightmares ever since.
And that’s how Sandy Koufax recorded the first strikeout of his major league career.
He still however had the bases loaded and just 1 out. Next to the plate was the fearsome Joe Adcock. Adcock had been 8th in the MVP voting in 1954. Koufax got Adcock to hit a grounder to Pee Wee Reese at shortstop. It was another double play ball, unlike Koufax earlier, Reese made the throw on target to Jim Gilliam at 2nd base. Gilliam turned and threw to Gil Hodges at 1st base, and Koufax had gotten out of the inning without a run scoring.
In the 6th inning, Koufax faced the bottom of the Braves’ order. He got the first 2 batters out on a grounder and a fly to center. Then up came the Braves’ pitcher Lew Burdette. He got him looking at a called 3rd strike. It was a 1-2-3 inning for Koufax, the first one of his career.
In the top of the 7th, Koufax came out of the game for a pinch hitter, and thus his first game was done. Koufax had given up no runs and 1 hit in 2 innings of work.
The Dodgers lost the game 8 - 2, but still have a commanding lead in the National League.
Jack Lang in the Staten Island Advance wrote about Koufax’s brief appearance, “Koufax, nervous at the start pitched well in his major league debut.”
John Craig of the Newark Star-Ledger also wrote a short bit on Koufax’s first game, “KOUFAX USED - With their bullpen ranks worn thin, bonus boy Sandy Koufax was given his major league baptism.”
NOTE from The Sports Time Traveler
As a virtual time traveler from the future, I was sort of hoping, maybe even expecting to find a prescient sportswriter on June 25, 1955, make mention that this looks like the start of a possible Hall of Fame career. But no one wrote that.
Nice write up!
Born and raised in Brooklyn, a rabid Dodgers fan, when asked what year would I like to get stuck in — relive again — my answer always is 1955. I was twelve and injured my leg — a deep would requiring many two-level stitches and confined to home. Thus I was able to watch every pitch of the 1955 World Series.