Friday, April 22, 2011

Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy - a short review


This last weekend I finished reading Jane Leavy's Sandy Koufax biography.  I was highly impressed.  I purchased it last year at a local friends of the library book sale.  I'm glad I did.

The book alternates chapters between a biography and an inning by inning recap of Koufax's perfect game.  Jane Leavey does a nice job letting us see what she learned about the pitcher and drawing us into the description of the game.  He's a tough one to understand, seemingly aloof, but always a gentleman.

Leavy taps teammates, opponents, reporters, players that were still in elementary school when he retired, and more for stories and insights.  Her writing style is relaxed, but with a purpose.  The one thing that did jump out at me is the use of some words that didn't quite seem to fit in a baseball biography.  An example is the word denouement.  It is used four times in the book.  A bit of a speedbump while driving the reading car.  But that is a minor quibble on my part.

Take a look at the book page at Harper Collins.  Go to the library and check it out.  Better yet, go buy a copy.  You'll want to share this with your baseball buddies and probably will want to reread it in a few years.

1 comment:

  1. Great book! FYI --although I haven't read it yet, Jane Leavy published a book last fall about Mickey Mantle called The Last Boy.

    ReplyDelete