Wikipedia:Today's featured article/September 12, 2005

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sandy Koufax is a former pitcher in Major League Baseball who played his entire career for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers from 1955 to 1966. He is best known for his string of six amazing seasons from 1961 to 1966 before arthritis ended his career at the age of 31. A notoriously difficult pitcher to hit against, he was the first major leaguer to pitch more than three no-hitters, the first to allow fewer than seven hits per nine innings pitched over his career, and the first to strike out more than nine batters per nine innings pitched in his career. Among National League pitchers with at least 2000 innings pitched who have debuted since 1913, he has both the highest career winning percentage (.655) and the lowest career earned run average (2.76); his 2396 career strikeouts ranked seventh in major league history upon his retirement, and trailed only Warren Spahn's total of 2583 among left-handers. Retiring virtually at the peak of his career, Koufax later became–at age 36–the youngest person ever elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

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