The .215 Hitter Who Fixed Sandy Koufax

For six years, Sandy Koufax was a rumor. From 1955 through 1960 he went 36 and 40 with a 4.10 ERA and 405 walks. He had the best arm anyone had seen and no idea where the ball was going, and the harder he tried to fix it, the worse it got.

By 1960 he was done pretending otherwise. He went to Buzzie Bavasi and asked to be traded. Send me somewhere I can get a fresh start, he said, if I can't do the job here. Bavasi said no. That winter Koufax thought seriously about leaving baseball for the electronics business.

March 23, 1961. Orlando. A B-squad exhibition against the Twins, the kind of game nobody writes down. The Dodgers traveled light because a pitcher had missed the plane, so Gil Hodges was running the club and Norm Sherry was catching. Koufax loaded the bases on twelve pitches.

Sherry walked out and told him to have some fun, stop trying to throw so hard, use the curve and the change. Koufax struck out the side. When he came off, Sherry told him he had just thrown harder than when he was aiming for it.

Norm Sherry hit .215 across five seasons and 194 games. He is in the record book as a backup catcher. He is also the reason the second half of Koufax's career looks the way it does: 111 wins against 34 losses from 1962 to 1966, four no-hitters, three Cy Youngs, all of it. The greatest left-hander who ever lived got there because a .215 hitter said the right thing at the right time in a game that did not count.