A review by eely225
Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy by Jane Leavy
4.0
Why this man? Leavy asks this question, in many variations, throughout the book. Why, of all people, did this man transcend his humanity at so young an age? Why does his myth endure, as if he evaporated at age 30? What made the public perceive Koufax as more than human?
This was a real education for me. I love baseball, but I'll admit that I don't dive deep into its lore. Most of what I read are minutiae regarding the current Chicago Cubs roster. But even I knew that Koufax stood out from history. Leavy does an excellent job balancing the actual details of his career with the mythic resonance they wielded later on. She parses what Koufax meant in the moment from what he means in hindsight. And she does an excellent job of not losing sight of the straightforward humanity of her subject.
This isn't, thankfully, hagiography, but a dissection of the many hagiographies Koufax found himself subject to. He didn't think of himself as Jewish Exemplar, Pitching Legend, or Unionist Hero. He was just a competitor who knew who he was and chose not to compromise. Koufax does stand as a unique symbol of the beginning of a new age of celebrity, connecting the baseball laborers with jobs in the offseason to the baseball stars of today. It was a more than admirable reflection of the subject's time and how he lived in it. That's about all you can ask for.
A brief note on the audiobook version, which I listened to: the author is a woman, but the publisher chose to have the book read by a man. I am of split opinion here. There are so few female voices in sports journalism that it feels like a betrayal to literally take one away. I do think we lose some of the uniqueness of her narration when its disassociated from her voice. That being said, the book is heavy on quotations, so there is something to hearting the almost-entirely-male cast of characters being voiced by a man. There's no perfect way around it, but it's just something to be aware of going in.
This was a real education for me. I love baseball, but I'll admit that I don't dive deep into its lore. Most of what I read are minutiae regarding the current Chicago Cubs roster. But even I knew that Koufax stood out from history. Leavy does an excellent job balancing the actual details of his career with the mythic resonance they wielded later on. She parses what Koufax meant in the moment from what he means in hindsight. And she does an excellent job of not losing sight of the straightforward humanity of her subject.
This isn't, thankfully, hagiography, but a dissection of the many hagiographies Koufax found himself subject to. He didn't think of himself as Jewish Exemplar, Pitching Legend, or Unionist Hero. He was just a competitor who knew who he was and chose not to compromise. Koufax does stand as a unique symbol of the beginning of a new age of celebrity, connecting the baseball laborers with jobs in the offseason to the baseball stars of today. It was a more than admirable reflection of the subject's time and how he lived in it. That's about all you can ask for.
A brief note on the audiobook version, which I listened to: the author is a woman, but the publisher chose to have the book read by a man. I am of split opinion here. There are so few female voices in sports journalism that it feels like a betrayal to literally take one away. I do think we lose some of the uniqueness of her narration when its disassociated from her voice. That being said, the book is heavy on quotations, so there is something to hearting the almost-entirely-male cast of characters being voiced by a man. There's no perfect way around it, but it's just something to be aware of going in.