I hate the Dodgers, but not Koufax

We get about a jillion books sent to us here in the office, and whenever one has a sports topic, it gets tossed my way.

That’s how I got to take a look at a new offering called “You Never Heard of Sandy Koufax?!”

It’s a 40-page biographical book for kids (ages 5 to 12, I’d say) and has very little Jewish content — aside from the line “Back when Koufax was a kid, growin’ up Jewish in Brooklyn, no one woulda guessed what he was about to become” and a few paragraphs about how the Dodgers’ star lefty refused to pitch in the 1965 World Series game that fell on Yom Kippur. Thankfully, Larry King is not mentioned anywhere.

The best part of the book: André Carrilho’s artwork is mesmerizing ... "texturally complex, digitally manipulated pencil drawings [with] harsh shadows, distorted perspectives and angular faces [that] speak of a hardboiled reality,” according to Publisher’s Weekly.

And here’s the main reason I’m writing about this book right here: Some people in the Bay Area might actually know of the author, Jonah Winter, who used to live in San Francisco in the 1990s and was in a folk band called “Ed's Redeeming Qualities.”  One of his bandmates (and his best friend, he says) was Dan Leone, the somewhat well-known  “Cheap Eats” columnist for the Bay Guardian, so no doubt Jonah was mentioned in a few of Leone’s wacky tales of culinary escapades. Winter now lives in Pittsburgh.

As long as we’re talking Koufax, here is my list of Top 5 left-handed pitchers of all time:

1, Sandy Koufax (a shorter career than most, but perhaps the greatest pitcher ever);

2, Steve Carlton (once the all-time strikeout king, no no-hitters but six one-hitters);

3, Randy Johnson (No. 2 all-time in strikeouts behind only right-hander Nolan Ryan; currently with the Giants);

4, Lefty Grove (pitched in ‘20s and ‘30s; led league in ERA nine times);

5, Warren Spahn (363 wins most all-time for lefties).

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