Mr. Book just finished Sandy Koufax, edited by Marc Aaron, Bill Nowlin and Glen Sparks.

This was a SABR book, put together by dozens of members of the Society for American Baseball Research. It starts with 17 articles on Koufax before giving game recaps of 36 memorable starts that he had made.

I was initially worried about this one. I was just hoping that it would avoid being just hagiography. Fortunately, that was not the case and I enjoyed it much more than I was expecting.

Among the best chapters were the ones that looked at his overall biography, Koufax’s home parks, one on pitchers who had the best final seasons and looks at other pitchers with short term peaks. Among the many games that were featured were each of his no hitters, his World Series success, pitching duels with Bob Gibson and Warren Spahn and the infamous game involving the Marichal-Roseboro incident.

I give this book an A. Goodreads requires grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, an A equates to 5 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).

This review has been posted at my blog, Mr. Book’s Book Reviews, and Goodreads.

Mr. Book finished reading this on September 23, 2024.