Sandy's First Start

The not so soon to be great Koufax started his first game on July 6, 1955

FORBES FIELD, PITTSBURGH - July 7, 1955

The Sports Time Traveler is following the 1955 Dodgers. Yesterday, they had a twilight doubleheader at Forbes Field against the last place Pittsburgh Pirates.

The Dodgers came into the day in 1st place in the National League, 12 games in front of the Cubs, and 17 games ahead of the defending World Series champion Giants.

The Dodgers sport a gaudy 55 - 23 record. That puts them on pace to equal the 110 wins record of the 1927 Murderer’s Row Yankees. And would put them on track for the major league mark of 116 wins if they were playing a 162 game schedule, but here in 1954 the season has just 154 games.

In the 1st game of the twin bill, Dodgers’ starter Carl Erskine had a 4 -1 lead and 2 outs in the 6th inning when he set a major league record of the wrong kind. Erskine gave up consecutive homers to Jerry Lynch, Frank Thomas and Dale Long.

Despite the hammering in the 6th, Erskine found himself with a 7 - 4 lead going into the last of the 8th. The first 2 Pirates’ batters drilled a double and a single and the tying run was now at the plate.

Dodgers’ manager Walt Alston decided it was finally time to take Erskine out. He went to his bullpen for Ed Roebuck. The 23-year-old Roebuck is a brilliant rookie reliever. He came into the game with a 2.26 ERA in 30 games.

Roebuck has been pitching in the Dodgers’ organization for 7 seasons, since he was just 17 years old. He had pitched 237 games in the minor leagues prior to this year. In the past 4 seasons in the minors, he had started 99 games with 14 of them resulting in shutouts.

Roebuck got out of the jam, allowing just 1 run to score on a groundout. In the 9th, he allowed just 1 single to Dick Groat and the game ended when Roebuck got another rookie, Roberto Clemente to ground out.

The Dodgers had their 56th win.

The Dodgers’ Starter for Game 2

19-year-old rookie, Sandy Koufax was the starting pitcher in the nightcap yesterday. Koufax is what is known here in 1955 as a bonus baby. He was given a bonus of about $20,000 to sign with the Dodgers before the season. And under baseball rules at this time, players who are given large bonuses must be kept on the major league roster. Sandy Koufax was a Brooklyn Dodger without ever having played a single game in the minors.

Until yesterday, Koufax had not yet started a game with the Dodgers. In fact, Koufax had never started a regular season game in professional baseball.

The last time Sandy Koufax was the starting pitcher in a baseball game was in the preseason when he faced the Dodgers’ B team for 2 innings of work on March 18th in Vero Beach. In those 2 innings no batter put a ball in play. Koufax got 5Ks, and his 6th out came when a man he had walked earlier was doubled up after a strikeout.

Prior to that start, Koufax had started 4 games in the spring of 1954 for the University of Cincinnati Bearcats freshman team. That’s right, the freshman team. Sandy Koufax never even played in a varsity game in college.

That’s a total of 5 games that Koufax had ever started in organized baseball.

Koufax may have started some games in a sandlot baseball league in the early 1950s. There are reports that he pitched a bit for the Parkviews of the Coney Island Sports League. There are no records of those games that this writer can find.

That’s quite a bit of difference in experience between the 2 Dodgers’ rookie pitchers - Roebuck and Koufax.

The Nightcap

The 1st batter Koufax faced, in his first major league start, was the Pirates’ rookie Roberto Clemente. He walked him. But he quickly got Clemente off the basepaths when he struck out the 2nd batter, Dick Cole, swinging, and Dodgers’ catcher Rube Walker threw a pick off throw to Gil Hodges at 1st base. Hodges put the tag on Clemente for an unusual double play.

However, nothing seems “usual” when we’re talking about Sandy Koufax.

Koufax proceeded to walk the next 2 Pirates. But he got out of the inning when he got Dale Long to lineout to Jim Gilliam in right field.

Gilliam then drove home Don Zimmer in the top of the 2nd to give Koufax a 1 - 0 lead.

In the bottom of the 2nd, Koufax got the leadoff batter to line out to 3rd base. Then he walked 2 and struck out 2, to get out of the inning and maintain his 1- 0 lead.

In the 3rd inning both teams went down in order.

Koufax had now pitched 3 shutout innings and still led the game 1 - 0.

The 4th was another easy inning for Koufax as he allowed just 1 walk.

That made it 4 shutout innings for Koufax.

In the 5th, Koufax got the leadoff batter, Vern Law, on a strikeout. Then he gave up what Jack Lang in the Staten Island Advance referred to as “scratch singles (that didn’t leave the infield)” to Clemente and Cole. The next batter hit a grounder that moved the runners to 2nd and 3rd. With 2 outs and 2 runners in scoring position, Koufax walked Frank Thomas to load the bases.

Next up was Dale Long. Koufax walked him as well. And that brought in the 1st run against Koufax. It also tied the game at 1.

Dodgers’ manager Walt Alston decided it was time to take out Sandy. He turned to his trusted rookie Roebuck. Roebuck struck out the next batter to end the threat. He then kept the Pirates in check in the 6th and 7th innings. But in the bottom of the 8th, Roebuck gave up 3 runs and the Dodgers lost the game 4 - 1.

Koufax had looked promising but also wild in his 1st start. Yes, he had only been charged with 1 run and had only yielded 3 hits, all singles, but he had also issued 8 walks in just 4 and 2/3 innings.

But this performance was strong enough that Newsday wrote, “KOUFAX GLITTERS,” in the headline for the game. In the article, they added, “his stuff was impressive… the kid gave up only three hits. Two were infield blows off the gloves of Pee Wee Rees and Don Hoak. The other was a roller through short after Pee Wee Reese had stepped toward second.”

The portion of the article on Koufax concluded that Sandy, “was untouchable.”

Newsday also indicated that the reason Alston removed him in the 5th was because Koufax had developed, “a kink in his back.”

The New York Daily News’s Dick Young however, made it clear that this was a yanking of the starter by Alston. Young noted that Koufax had already thrown 106 pitches in just half a game, and in addition to walking 8 batters, he gone to a 3 and 2 count on almost everyone he faced.

But Young was not all negative about the bonus baby. He put forth his prescient assessment of Sandy Koufax, “Make no mistake about Sandy; he has talent. If nothing happens to his arm, he could become a tremendous winner for Brooklyn. He fires bullets. He has a big, straight-down motion; whipping the ball from behind his left ear. He figures to be wild for now, and he can win in spite of it.”

NOTE from 2025

I have come back to the present time to inform you that Dick Young was regarded as one of the great sportswriters of his time. The above evaluation of Koufax’s prospects, based on such a limited opportunity to observe him in action, demonstrates why Dick Young is so revered.

Now back to 1955 for one more note.

Additional Dodgers’ Notes

Duke Snider is outplaying his rival centerfielders in the New York area this summer by a wide margin.

The Duke leads the majors in home runs with 28.

He also leads the majors in RBIs with 87 in just 80 Dodgers’ games. 2nd most in the majors in just 68 RBIs by Jackie Jensen of the Red Sox.

And Snider is batting .323, which is 4th in the National League and 7th in the majors.

Here’s the comparison of the three great New York centerfielders across the 3 major offensive categories through the games of July 6, 1955:

Home Runs
28 Snider
25 Mays
18 Mantle

Runs Batted In
87 Snider
61 Mays
57 Mantle

Batting Average
.323 Snider
.303 Mantle
.296 Mays

The Sports Time Traveler will continue following the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers day-by-day and filing reports when there is something so fascinating I just have to share it.