Sandy Koufax Earns NL MVP Honors 59 Years Ago Today

Today marks 59 years since he won MVP while earning his first ever unanimous deletion for the Cy Young award. Koufax also won the Hickok Belt award, an award given from 1950-1976 to the top professional athlete of the year in the United States. 

In his 1963 MVP season, Sandy put up crazy numbers. In 40 games he pitched, he went 25-5 with a 1.88 ERA, and 306 strikeouts in 311 innings pitched. That wasn’t even his career high in strikeouts that season. However, he had the highest win percentage in 1963, winning 83.3% of his games. 

In his 12-year career, Koufax went 165-87 with a 2.76 ERA, 397 games pitched, 2,324.1 innings pitched, 2,396 strikeouts, pitched a perfect game, and four no-hitters. 

He was a first-ballot hall of Famer inducted in 1972, but his career was cut short due to severe arthritis. 

He was told not to pitch anymore in April of 1966, and he still pitched his way to 27 wins and a 1.73 ERA; both are career highs. 

Sandy is arguably the greatest pitcher in Dodger history, and we’re lucky to have had him in Dodger blue.