My Husband and Hall-of-Famer Sandy Koufax

It was the mid-60s and the Los Angeles Dodgers were playing baseball against the Atlanta Braves, in Atlanta. My husband was 14 years old and this was his first Major League baseball game. It was a very big deal. A modest childhood plus a real Major League baseball game equals a boyhood dream come true. In fact, baseball was his reason for waking up in the morning. His family loves to tell stories about a young Eddie hanging on the front door of their cinderblock duplex with rain streaming through the screen, sobbing loudly because baseball practice was rained out. I can imagine the scene so vividly, his passion for games that involve a ball and a stick are legend, and documented in this article about Half Rubber.

So here he was at a real Major League baseball game. The Dodgers superstar Sandy Koufax was pitching. Eddie is, was and always will be a catcher. So of course he had his glove and was sure he was going to catch a ball. Well, he did! Young Eddie caught a foul ball over the bullpen all by himself. Filled with sweet enthusiasm he could have floated home. He didn't realize how important the ball was, or how famous Sandy Koufax would become. No, he was excited because he had a new baseball.

He took the new baseball home and gingerly placed it on his dresser. But it stayed in this place of honor only briefly that summer. Just a few days later he and friends were deeply involved in a particularly competitive game of baseball when they destroyed the only raggedy, lopsided, duct taped ball they had. The game was far from being over so they were frantic.

There was only one wooden bat and one homemade ball in the entire neighborhood. The bat was nailed and taped together and now the single ball was ruined. With no money to replace the ball a dark gloominess fell over the kids. See nobody had a birthday coming up any time soon and they were a long way from Christmas.

Abandoning the baseball game was out of the question.

Not only did they want to finish that particular game but they really needed a baseball. They played every day. Eddie still remembers the guys standing on the field sadly wondering what to do next.

Then it dawned on him. He had a brand new baseball right on his dresser. To the rescue, he raced home as fast as his kid-legs would carry him. He was a hero; all the neighbor boys were thrilled at the chance to play with a brand new Major League baseball.

Forgetting (or never fully realizing) how special that ball really was, they resumed the baseball game. That day, however, disaster struck when one of the kids hit a home run over the fence and the ball landed in a thicket of bushes. After hours of searching the ball never materialized. They got less than 2 hours of playing time on Sandy Koufax's ball. And they never finished that big game.

As the years go by my husband realizes what he lost. It is too bad that a ball that was pitched by Hall-of-Famer Sandy Koufax and caught by a scrappy 14 year old kid was gone so quickly. But, for a moment, they got to play with a real Major League baseball.

For the love of the game.