Player notes: For a five year period (1962-1966), Koufax was as dominant a pitcher as baseball has ever seen. During that period he won three Cy Young Awards, one MVP Award, and two World Series MVP Awards while leading the Dodgers to three National League Pennants and two World Championships. He combined with the late Don Drysdale to form one of the most feared pitching tandems in baseball history.

This period of stardom came after six years of struggle to rise above being a .500 pitcher. Once he got going, though, he achieved a level of greatness rarely seen in a pitcher. For most of his career he was pitching in great pain, however, and after a stellar season in 1966 Koufax became that rare player who retired at the top of his game.

Sandy's career and personality have been well-chronicled, most recently in the excellent best selling biography by Jane Leavey, Sandy Koufax : A Lefty's Legacy, so there is little need to add to that chronicle here. Siffice to say that I concur with the assessment that he was, for a period of time, the greatest left-handed pitcher in baseball history.