Sixty years ago, Sandy Koufax glittered, particularly at Dodger Stadium where he stole the show

As the MLB season begins, we remember the 60th anniversary of the very special 1965 World Series. It pitted the Minnesota Twins and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The games were played differently then

Sandy Koufax and Jim Kaat went at it three times, Games #2, #5 and #7. The two were among the very best pitching staffs, representing their respective ball clubs. On the eve of the high Jewish Holidays, Koufax told his Dodgers’ Manager Walter Alston that he would not partake in Game #1 because it fell on Yom Kippur.

So Sam Mele, the Twins’ Manager went with Mudcat Grant to start and the Dodgers assigned Don Drysdale. Despite an emotional roller coaster of local race-riots, a tight pennant chase and a weighty religious calling, Koufax glittered in the clutch.

Sandy was on the mound at Dodger Stadium on Aug. 14, 1965. It was then when Civil Rights violence raged in the Watts section, a short ride down the 110 Freeway. Unshakably, he shut out the pennant-contending Pittsburgh Pirates and for good measure when he himself scored the game’s only run in the 10 inning win.

The next day, the Los Angeles Times reported that “a crowd of only 29,237 turned out at Dodger Stadium. Management said the seriousness of the local situation hurt attendance by at least 15,000.”

With flames still smoldering in Watts on Sept. 9, Koufax galvanized the baseball world, throwing a perfect game at home against the Chicago Cubs. Firearms were deafening while Sandy pitched his no-hitter.

Facing Yom Kippur, after tossing the pennant-clincher on the penultimate day of the regular season, Koufax affirmed that he  wouldn’t trump his High Holiday. Dodgers’ owner Walter O’Malley had Sandy’s back, allowing him to take the day off, “under any circumstances even if he could get a dispensation.” Sandy had the guts to do so.

U.S. synagogues in 1965 were dotted with Holocaust survivors who didn’t know a curveball from a meatball. Yet they treasured the name Sandy Koufax. Not to dampen the golden celebration of Koufax, now 88, baseball on Yom Kippur really belongs to Hank Greenberg, both fellow Hall of Famers.

While anti-Semitism existed in the USA during Koufax’ pitching day, the disdain was somewhat subtle. Jews faced hidden quotas in schools, were stymied in some established industries and like other minorities, there were occasional butts of ethnic jokes by television comedians. Still, there was heightened optimism about the future of Jewish life in the United States.

As a Tiger, baseballer Greenberg also had to deal heads-on with Detroit, the base for both Father Charles Coughlin and Henry Ford.

Coughlin was a fiery priest and orator who venomously stirred the citizenry, spewing Jewish prejudice on his weekly network radio broadcasts that reached up to forty-million people, according to The New York Times. Outside Coughlin’s Detroit-area parish, Shrine of the Little Flower, as many as 25,000 people lined the streets to listen to his extreme views on politics and blistering comments about Jews. In 1992, Sidney Bolkolsky, a professor of history at the University of Michigan in Dearborn told the Times, “After those Sunday broadcasts, Jewish factory workers were afraid to go to work the next day.”

Ford, the founder of Detroit’s Ford Motor Company, said Jews were the source of the USA’s ills. Jews read about the rise of Nazi Germany and were well aware of Ford’s prestige, reach and resources. According to historian Hasia Diner, both caused them to question how and if Jews were being accepted as Americans.

Detroit’s large department store chain, J.L. Hudson, also ran employment ads tagged, “Only Gentiles need apply.”