Meticulously reported and elegantly written, the last boy is a baseball tapestry that weaves together episodes from the authors. This is still a fascinating book nearly 50 years after it was published. Although dad marveled at koufax s inimitable pitching in a year of reading one book for every year of my dads life, it was inevitable that i would choose the best biography of his alltime favorite baseball player. Sandy koufax may have been the strikeout king of baseball, but if you ask me jonah winters the current strikeout king of the nonfiction picture book set. This guys juggling a bio of sandy koufax alongside one of gertrude stein gertrude is gertrude is gertrude is gertrude. A leftys legacy, returns with a biography of an american original. Leavy humanizes her subject even as she demythologizes him. Leavy has done a dizzying amount of reportingmore than 400 interviewsand koufax doesnt just survive the scrutiny, he emerges from it larger than ever. In this striking picture book biography, an oldtimer tells us what made sandy koufax such an amazing baseball player. You never heard of sandy koufax winter, jonah, carrilho. Koufax ended his 48year association with the bums after a blind gossip item in the new york post owned, like the dodgers, by news corp. Jane leavy, the acclaimed author of the new york times bestseller sandy koufax. The incomparable and mysterious sandy koufax is revealedthis is an absorbing book, beautifully written.
It tells you what he is thinking throughout the whole book. This in my opinion is the best book of the three i have read on sandy koufax, mainly because it is an autobiography. Sandy koufax was the player he talked about most, with jackie robinson a respectable second. We learn that the beginning of his career with the brooklyn dodgers was rocky, that he was shy with his teammates, and experienced discrimination as one of the only jews in the game.
Koufax, at age 36 in 1972, became the youngest player ever elected to the baseball hall of fame. Baseballs hall of famers tell it like it was mickey mantle, yogi berra, ty cobb, jackie robinson, babe ruth, dizzy dean, joe dimaggio, lou gehrig, ted williams, sandy koufax, willie mays, and many more published by galahad books. December 30, 1935 is an american former professional baseball lefthanded pitcher. He pitched 12 seasons for the brooklynlos angeles dodgers of major league baseball mlb from 1955 to 1966.