8-27-55: Koufax busts out with 14 Ks

Sandy Koufaz was 19 and in the first year of his major league baseball career when he posed for this 1955 Topps baseball card. The dominant pitcher of the 1960s was sparingly used this season, but on Aug. 27 he struck out 14 as he shut out the Cincinnati Reds for his first big league victory.

By Phil Ellenbecker

  So this is what it was all about.

  This is why the Brooklyn Dodgers took a chance on a relatively unproven pitcher and handed out a $20,000 bonus to Sandy Koufax, making him a "bonus baby" who would have to spend two years with the major league club before it could send him down for seasoning.

  Going into Aug. 27, 1955, at Brooklyn's Ebbets Field, the flame-throwing left-hander hadn't really gotten much of a chance to show what he could do. Part of that was because early on in that rookie season, he sprained both ankles within a three-day period and then soon developed acute pain in his left arm and landed on the 30-day disabled list, without yet having thrown his first regular-season pitch. He didn't make his big league debut until June 25.

  Going into Aug 27, he'd pitched in only six of the Dodgers' 125 games, 11 2/3 innings, giving up eight hits and three earned runs, walking 12 and striking out eight. He'd started one game, July 6 at Pittsburgh, in which he'd gone 4 2/3 innings and given up three hits and only one earned run, but walked eight while striking out four.

  The 19-year-old had no decisions and a 2.31 ERA. Not too bad, not too embarrassing, but not much to go by.

  And then came that Saturday afternoon before a Ladies Day crowd of 18,133 at Ebbets (but paid admission of only 7,204, perhaps a hint of why Brooklyn would be moving to Los Angeles for the 1958 season). On that day, he showed the potential that, after several years of mediocrity, made him the premier pitcher of the 1960s and a member of the Hall of Fame. For the most part, it was all there on this one day.

  On this day, in his second start of the season, Koufax struck out 14 batters and allowed only two hits as he shut out the Cincinnati Reds, 7-0, for his first major league victory. He was dominant start to finish against a team that finished second in the National League in runs scored for the season and had won seven of its past nine games.

  He struck out one batter in each inning, two in five separate innings. He caught seven batters looking. Gus Bell, their No. 5 hitter, collected a Golden Sombrero by striking out four times, two times looking. Johnny Temple and Wally Post were the only Cincinnati batters not to strike out.

  Bell had been on a tear, with a .628 slugging average, 7 home runs and 21 RBIs in his past 23 games. 

  “The lad had as much stuff as any pitcher I’ve faced in quite a spell,” Bell told Lou Smith in the Cincinnati Enquirer, as quoted in an article by Gregory H. Wolf for the Society for American Baseball Research Games Project. 

  About the only thing marring Koufax's performance was the five walks he handed out. But he managed to work around them.

  In both the sixth and seventh innings Koufax walked consecutive batters as Reds manager Birdie Tibbetts instructed his batters to wait out Koufax to disturb his rhythm. Temple and Smoky Burgess drew passes with one out in the sixth, prompting Dodgers manager Walter Alston to make his only mound visit of the day.

   “I thought maybe he might be trying to aim the ball,” Alston told Roscoe McGowen of The New York Times. “I just wanted to tell him to keep throwing it as he had been doing.”

  After Ted Kluszewski flied out, Koufax slipped off the mound while pitching to Post and was called for a balk, putting runners at second and third. But Post then flied out to right, and the threat was removed.

  With two out in the seventh Koufax walked Sam Mele and Rocky Bridges. But pinch hitter Chuck Harmon whiffed, and that was that.

  The only other time Cincinnati moved a runner into scoring position was the ninth inning, when Mele doubled with two out. The Reds' only other hit came in the first, a single by Kluszewski.

  Koufax came within two strikeouts of matching Nap Rucker's team record set in 1909. Post grounded out leading off the ninth to remove any chance at that.

  “He had a good curve and his fastball was good, too,” said batterymate Roy Campanella. “His control was all right. He never was wild at any time. Did not ever miss the plate by much."                                                          

 Smith wrote: “He had poise, a smooth delivery, along with a changeup that usually takes years for a young hurler to acquire.”

Jackie Robinson, in the penultimate year of his career, was a force on the bases and at bat in the Brooklyn Dodgers' 7-0 victory over Cincinnati on Aug. 27, 1955. He stole second and third after beating out an infield single before scoring a run in the fourth inning. Later he added a two-run homer.

  Koufax's teammates gave him ample support throughout. The Dodgers took a 3-0 lead in the first on a sacrifice fly by Campanella and a two-run homer into the lower center-field stands by Carl Furillo. It was Furillo's 22nd round tripper of the season, setting a career high. (He'd finish the season with 26.)

  Jackie Robinson, 36 years old and in the next-to-last season of his legendary career, manufactured a run in the fourth and showed he could still wreak havoc on the base paths. After beating out a single on a grounder to deep short, Robinson stole second and third. He scored on a fielder's choice grounder by Sandy Amoros on which a tailor-made double-play grounder to shortstop Roy McMillan was fumbled, allowing Robinson to cross the plate. No error to McMillan, a three-time Gold Glove winner, was charged on the play.

  (The steals were Jackie's ninth and 10th in a season he had 12 total. Later in the year, in Game 1 of the World Series, Robinson stole home on a disputed play that New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra insisted to his dying day Robinson was out on.)    

   Robinson, who by this time was playing third base and batting sixth after manning second base and cleanup earlier in his career, continued to be an offensive catalyst in padding the Dodgers' lead. He drew a bases-loaded walk to score Duke Snider and make it 5-0 in the fifth.

  Then he rounded out the scoring with a two-run homer in the seventh after Furillo had reached base on an error by McMillan. The homer was Robinson's seventh of the season.

  Robinson finished the day 2-for-3 with three RBIs and two runs scored.

  Koufax, never much of a hitter (lifetime .097 average), had his own Golden Sombrero with four strikeouts.                

  Koufax’s 14 strikeouts on the mound were the most by an NL pitcher in a game in 1955. Combined with the nine strikeouts by Reds pitchers, the 23 strikeouts tied a then-major-league record for the most in a nine-inning game, matching the mark set by the Boston Braves and Reds in 1901 and the New York Yankees and Washington Senators in 1914.

  Koufax's pitching performance earned him three starts the rest of the season. He threw another shutout Sept. 3 against Pittsburgh, giving up nine hits in a complete game. He gave up four runs over 6 2/3 innings Sept. 11 in taking a loss against the Reds. He gave up two runs in four innings in a no-decision Sept. 15 against St. Louis.

  Koufax finished 1955 with 2-2 record and a 3.02 ERA, pitching in 12 games and 41 2/3 innings, giving up 33 hits and 28 walks while striking out 30.                                                      He did not pitch in the World Series, won by the Dodgers for their only Fall Classic triumph over the Yankees in seven tries while in Brooklyn. (Overall, the Dodgers and Yankees have squared off a record 11 times in the Series.)

  Koufax never did get sent down to the minor leagues, although it took him awhile to get established in the big leagues. Over the next five seasons his innings gradually increased from 58 to 175, in which time he had a 34-38 record.

  His breakthrough season was 1961, when he went 18-13 with a 3.52 ERA.

  And then the rest is history. From 1962 through his final season in 1966, he won five straight ERA titles, three Cy Young Awards, three pitching Triple Crowns, two World Series MVP awards and one NL MVP award. He pitched a then-record four no-hitters, including a perfect game.

 And then early retirement at the age of 30, after 12 seasons, because of an arthritic left elbow. He had a 185-67 career record with a 2.76 ERA. In 1972, at age 36, he became the youngest player to be enshrined into the Hall of Fame.

 And it all really started on Aug. 27, 1955. 

Sources:Play-by-play: https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1955/B08270BRO1955.htm and https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/august-27-1955-teenage-sandy-koufax-strikes-out-14-first-big-league-win 
History of Dodgers-Yankees World Series: https://www.si.com/mlb/2013/06/18/fall-classics-the-11-world-series-showdowns-between-the-yankees-and-dodgers  
Additional background came from various sources on the Retrosheet and Society for American Baseball Research's Biography Project websites, as well as baseballreference.com.