60 years later, Sandy Koufax's perfect game is still amazing

"For baseball aficionados, the name Sandy Koufax is almost mythical. In the 1960s Koufax put together what is generally considered the greatest span of five seasons for a pitcher in Major League history. And 60 years ago, Sept. 9, 1965, Koufax had his single most magical night as he became just the sixth pitcher in the modern era to throw a perfect game."

""He had a beauty about that was hard to describe," recalled Wes Parker, who was the first baseman with Koufax's Los Angeles Dodgers team in 1965. "If you've seen a ballet dancer. He had that kind of beauty of motion. Like a beautiful animal, like a racehorse, something like that," he said. And his accomplishments on the field backed up the accolades."

Sandy Koufax built a dominant pitching career in the 1960s, culminating in a perfect game on Sept. 9, 1965. Teammate Wes Parker described Koufax's delivery as having a balletic beauty and fluid motion. Koufax led the Dodgers to a four-game sweep of the New York Yankees in the 1963 World Series with a 25-5 regular season record. Koufax combined a blistering fastball with a devastating curveball, won three Cy Young awards in four years, led the National League in ERA for five straight seasons, and set a then-record 382 strikeouts in 1965. Opponents sometimes identified his pitch tipping but still could not hit him. His perfect game occurred amid a tight pennant race with the San Francisco Giants.

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