Neyer: Dean Chance and Sandy Koufax
From SABR member Rob Neyer at The National Pastime Museum on August 17, 2015:
In 1965’s Official Baseball Annual, the top headline on the cover—accompanied by photos of two Los Angeles hurlers—read, “WHO’S THE BEST PITCHER IN BASEBALL?” The candidates? Los Angeles Dodger Sandy Koufax and Los Angeles Angel Dean Chance.
Both Koufax and Chance had won Cy Young Awards in 1964. Inside the magazine, Billy Libby wrote, “Curiously, both pitched in the same park, Los Angeles’ Chavez Ravine.”
It wasn’t that curious. Or it shouldn’t have been. By “Chavez Ravine”—which was technically the name of the ballpark when the Angels were playing their home games there, even though the ballpark wasn’t actually situated in the ravine—Libby meant Dodger Stadium, and throughout the 1960s Dodger Stadium ranked as the National League’s friendliest park to pitchers. And of course nobody took better advantage of Dodger Stadium than Sandy Koufax.
Read the full article here: http://www.thenationalpastimemuseum.com/article/chance-and-koufax
Originally published: August 18, 2015. Last Updated: August 18, 2015.