Koufax knew K's, from both ends of bat

No doubt about it, Sandy Koufax knew strikeouts. In 12 major league seasons (1955-66) he threw 2,396 of them. That puts him at #42 all-time, #15 among left-handers. His career record is 9.3 K's per nine innings; good enough to lead the NL six times and the major leagues three times.

But Koufax also knew strikeouts from the other end of the bat.

In his rookie season of 1955, Koufax never went to bat without striking out. In his 12 games that year, Koufax was 0-for-12, with 12 K's. Those whiffs included six times caught looking, a missed bunt and a fouled bunt.

Moreover, the Dodgers' record in Koufax's dozen games in 1955 was 2-10. The only games Brooklyn won when Koufax pitched in 1955 were the complete-game two shutouts he threw. To be fair, as a bench-sitting bonus baby, Koufax was mostly used in '55 as a mop-up pitcher in games in which the decision was already determined.

It was seven games into his second season, June 3, 1956, before Koufax ever got on base or put wood to ball in a meaningful way. His former teammate Russ (The Mad Monk -- one of baseball's great nicknames) Meyer, then with the Cubs walked him in his first AB. Koufax also grounded out and was struck out looking by Meyer in that game, and walked again in the ninth off Vito Valentinetti. Koufax won the game 4-3 for his first victory of 1956.

Koufax's first major league hit came in his next game, June 8. He started in Cincinnati but was not in on the decision in a 4-6 Dodgers loss, Facing Johnny Klippstein, Koufax struck out in the third and in the fifth got a ground-ball single.

He got one more hit in 1956, off Willard Schmidt in St. Louis in his July 22 4-3 win over the Cardinals. That brought his career BA to .071.

0-for 1957

Once again in 1957, Koufax went hitless. In 26 at-bats over 34 games he had neither a hit nor a walk, though he did score one run. On Aug. 1 at Wrigley Field, Koufax reached first base on a throwing error, worked his way around on singles by Jim Gilliam and Carl Furillo and scored on a Gil Hodges home run. He won that game 12-3.

At that point in his career, his batting average was .032.

For the 1958-64 seasons, Koufax hit .090, between .064 and .122. He averaged just under 65 strikeouts per season. 

In 1958 he got his first extra-base hit, the first of nine doubles he'd rap in his career. The initial two-bagger came Aug. 7, again in Chicago, in his 3-1 win over the Cubs. Serving up the double was Marcelino Solis. 

Koufax never hit a triple. He had two home runs, both in Milwaukee. In 1962 he had a solo shot off Warren Spahn, and in 1963 he hit a three-run blast to take a 1-3 lead against Denny Lemaster.

In 1965, the reason(s) for which I've found no explanation, Koufax went nuts with the bat. He more than doubled his lifetime BA by hitting .177. It was second on his Cy Young seasons and the Dodgers won the World Series that year against Minnesota.

Koufax had not appeared in the 1955 or 1956 World Series against the Yankees. He was 0-for-2 against the White Sox in 1959 and 0-for-6 versus New York in 1963. He got his lone post-season at bat in the 1965 Series against the Twins, an RBI single off Jim Perry in Game 5. He was again hitless in the 1966 Classic versus the Orioles. Overall, in 19 at-bats in four World Series, Koufax hit .053 with one walk and eight strikeouts.

For his regular-season major league career, Koufax batted .097. He struck out 386 times in 776 at-bats, walking 43 times. 

Surprisingly, Koufax has only the fifth-lowest batting average among Hall of Fame pitchers, though those below him were all primarily relievers, with far fewer at-bats. The numbers . . . 

Pitcher                       AB   H   BA     SO
Tommy LaSorda        14    1   .071       4
Hoyt Wilhelm            432  38   .088   166   
Bruce Sutter             102    9   .088     50
Satchel Paige           124  12   .097     32 
Sandy Koufax           776  75   .097   386

As hapless as he generally was with a bat, Sandy Koufax was masterful with the ball. It was his pitching that earned him legions of fans, three Cy Young Awards, an MVP, three World's Champion rings and a pair of World Series MVPs. All that, and one of the best nicknames of his generation: The Left Hand of God.

It is one of baseball great misfortunes that arm troubles forced him to cut short his major league career at the age of 30.

'67 custom wraps up Jay's career

I've said it many times on my blog in the past . . . I wasn't much into baseball or cards after 1960.

Therefore, I never realized that Joey Jay returned to the Braves in mid-1966 after 6-1/2 seasons with the Cincinnati Reds. Jay, of course, was a bonus baby signing with the Milwaukee Braves out of high school in 1953. 

I've read that Charlie Grimm had no use for bonus players and that he kept Jay firmly planted on the bench until mid-1955 when he could be -- and was -- sent out to the minors. After  2-1/2 seasons in the minors with a 29-22 record, and after going 17-10 in 1957, Jay was called back up to Milwaukee for 1958.

In the next three seasons for the Braves, Jay was 22-24. After the season he was traded to the Reds with Juan Pizzaro (one of my all-time favorite 1957 Topps cards) for Roy McMillan.

With his new team, Jay had a career year in 1961, leading the league with 21 wins (10 losses) and four shut-outs. He was named to both All-Star games, put appeared in neither, having pitched just two days earlier in both cases. He started and won Game 2 of the World Series, allowing just four hits at Yankee Stadium.

He followed up with a 21-14 mark in 1962. From 1963 until June, 1966, Jay had a 33-45 record. He was 6-2 in mid-June when the Reds traded him to the Braves -- in their first year in Atlanta -- for Hank Fischer. That deal wasn't productive for either team. Jay was 0-4 for the Braves for the rest of 1966 and Fischer was 0-6 for Cincinnati before he was traded to the Red in mid-August.

Jay's return to the Braves marked the end of his major league career. He was released after the season, eventually being picked up by the Phillies. He couldn't make the big club's roster and after pitching four games at Class A Tidewater, he retired from pro ball.

They didn't have to hold any benefits for Jay after his playing days were over . . . he owned more than 30 producing gas and oil wells in Wast Virginia,

As I mentioned earlier, I was unaware the Jay had ended his big league days back with the Braves . . . until one day when I saw among the Topps Vault eBay auctions portrait and posed-action photos of Jay in an Atlanta uniform.

I immediately decided to do a "final" Joe Jay card in the 1967 Topps format and you see it now before you.

On a mostly unrelated note, until I read it recently in a 1964 issue of The Sporting News, I did not know that in the post-war era, the Milwaukee Braves seldom rehired players who they had previously dealt away or released. According to the article, it happened only three times into the early 1960s. 

In 1961 they brought back Johnny Antonelli, a bonus baby who had pitched for the Braves in Boston (1948-50), spent 1951-52 in the army, then returned to Milwaukee in 1953. He had been traded to the Giants in 1964.

Alvin Dark had been with Boston 1946, 1948-49 before he, too, was traded to the Giants in 1950. He returned to the Braves in mid-1960.

Both Dark and Antonelli ended their major league playing careers after their comeback seasons with Milwaukee. 

The "other" Frank Thomas came back to the Braves during the 1965 season. He had been with Milwaukee most of 1961, before being traded to the Mets in the post-season. He ended his big league days with a handful of games with the Cubs in 1966.

At last . . . "Topps" cards for Tony Horton

Tony Horton was never really on my radar during his playing days in the 1960s. By the time he made the majors in 1964, my sports and card collecting interests had largely shifted to the American Football League.

Once I got involved professionally in the card hobby in 1980, I became aware of Horton's unusual card history. Though he played for seven seasons in the American League, Horton never appeared on a Topps card.

I recall Larry Fritsch was the person who brought this to my attention. We occasionally speculated on the lack of Horton Topps cards and whether the decision was made by the player or the bubblegum company.

We'll probably never know, because, as I recently learned, Horton steadfastly refuses to talk about his baseball life. 

An excellent biography of Horton, written by Mark Kanter and Mark Armour  can be found in the SABR Baseball Biography Project at http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/e1dbb148 . It was originally published in The 1967 Impossible Dream Red Sox: Pandemonium On The Field, edited by Bill Nowlin and Dan Desrochers, and published by Rounder Books in 2007.

Another perspective on Tony Horton, from Scott Raab, a contemporary Indians' fan is found in the 2010 book, Top of the Order: 25 Writers Pick Their Favorite Baseball Player of All Time. An excerpt can be found here: http://deadspin.com/5548412/taunting-tony-horton-the-day-after-he-slit-his-wrists-a-cleveland-fan-repents.

Horton's absence from Topps cards doesn't mean he left no baseball card legacy. After Marvin Miller revamped the Major League Baseball Players Association in 1968 with a new collective bargaining agreement and group licensing, Horton began appearing on various baseball card issues.

Among the cards on which he can be found are the 1969 Nabisco cereal box-back cards, 1969 MLB photostamps, 1969 MLBPA pins, 1969 Kahn's Wieners, 1969 Globe Imports (not licensed), 1969 Milton Bradley, 1971 Kellogg's 3D, 1971 Dell stamps and others. Horton was also included in a number of team-issue photopacks with the Red Sox and Indians.

Horton was also in at least one post-career card set, the 1978 TCMA "The Sixties" issue.

In recent years, a number of custom card makers have created various Topps-style Horton cards. Some of them use the same color photos as my newly created 1965, 1967 and 1970 style customs. That's to be expected since there are relatively few available color photos of Horton from his playing days. My customs differ from most in that I also create full backs for each card.

The photos I used on my Tony Horton custom cards are, surprisingly, all from the Topps' archives. Just because Horton wasn't appearing on their baseball cards didn't mean Topps wasn't taking his photo.

Regular reader of this blog know that for the past several months my card-making efforts have been concentrated on making "additions" to several of my favorite non-sports card sets of the 1950s and 1960s. 

I decided to switch gears back to baseball cards when a pair of Tony Horton/Red Sox photos appeared among the Topps Vault auctions on eBay. I'd already had in my files a 1969 Topps photo of Horton in an Indians uniform, courtesy of a hobby colleague.

There are just about enough other suitable Tony Horton photos to fill the gaps in the Topps line-up . . . 1966, 1968, 1969, 1971 . . . but I'll leave that to other custom card guys.