Baseball: Too Many Shots, Too Many Pills

“It was a year,” he said, “of a few too many shots, and a few too many pills. I was walking around sick to my stomach; I was half high on the mound.

Fifteen or eighteen cortisone shots made the decision for me.”

With those words Sandy Koufax, the highest-paid player (at $125,000) and one of the best pitchers in baseball his tory, retired last week — at 30. In the last five years with the Los Angeles Dodgers, mostly on the strength of a smashing fastball and a jug-handle curve, Lefthander Koufax has won 111 games, lost only 34, pitched four no-hitters, and struck out an incredible 1,444 batters. He has won the Cy Young Award for baseball’s top pitcher three times, and he was the National League’s Most Valuable Player in 1963. But Sandy has arthritis in his pitching arm. He missed half of the 1962 and 1964 seasons, took ice-cube-and-hot-water treatments before every pitching turn last year; even with pills and injections, he suffered so badly that any fan could see the agony on his face. His pitching arm eventually grew so crooked that he had to shorten his sleeves an inch on the left side.

“Another year,” said Sandy last week, “and I might wind up crippled for life.” Bachelor Koufax has not decided what he intends to do for a living now, and he is in no hurry to make up his mind. Said he, with a wry grin: “I have enough money to eat lunch and dinner today.”