September 25, 1965: Sandy Koufax sets new single-season strikeout record in shutout over Cardinals

Much like Godzilla had his way with Tokyo on mid-century silver screens, Sandy Koufax, between 1959 and 1965, toppled just about every strikeout record within his reach.

On June 22, 1959, Koufax became the first major-league hurler to fan 16 in a night game. Ten weeks later, he set a new National League record and tied Bob Feller’s major-league record by punching out 18 San Francisco Giants.1 In 1961 Koufax recorded a major league-leading 269 strikeouts to break the NL post-1900 season mark of 267 that Christy Mathewson had established 58 years earlier.

Midway through the 1962 season, Koufax was on pace to exceed Feller’s major-league, post-1900 season record of 348 strikeouts,2 but a circulatory problem in the index finger of his pitching hand effectively ended his season. He came back strong the following year, winning the pitching Triple Crown, a Cy Young Award, NL MVP Award, and World Series MVP Award. In Game One of the 1963 World Series, Koufax knocked former Brooklyn teammate Carl Erskine out of the record book by setting a new postseason single-game mark of 15 strikeouts.

In 1964, chronic elbow inflammation, exacerbated by a base-sliding injury, limited Koufax to 29 starts and 223 strikeouts.3 The following April, Koufax was revealed to be suffering from traumatic arthritis in his left elbow.4 A combination of rest, cortisone shots, and anti-inflammatory pain relievers allowed him to join the Dodgers rotation for their season-opening road trip and, improbably, stay there.5 On the Monday after Memorial Day, the Des Moines Tribune raised the possibility of Koufax finally eclipsing Feller’s mark, noting that the Dodgers southpaw had fanned 105 (in 11 starts) with three-quarters of the season remaining.6

Koufax continued taking the ball every four or five days over the summer as the Dodgers maintained a slim lead in the NL pennant race. By Labor Day, Koufax had 318 strikeouts, putting him 30 shy of 348. Asked a few days earlier what he thought of Koufax breaking his record, Feller said that he thought Koufax would, then implied that he had had a tougher time of it in reaching 348. “In 1946 there were 5,200 strikeouts in the American League and last year there were close to 9,500. You can’t compare me with Koufax.”7

In Koufax’s next appearance, on September 9 at Dodger Stadium, he struck out 14 Cubs enroute to the eighth perfect game in major-league history, a feat that also made him the first pitcher to craft four no-hitters. With nearly four weeks left in the season, Feller’s mark was clearly in sight. “I had a good shot at it in 1962,” Koufax told reporters. “I thought I’d never have another chance. Now I do.”8 He would have to catch Feller while trying to help his team make up ground on the Giants, who had moved past the Dodgers into first place.

Over the next two weeks, Koufax started three times and earned a save in relief but managed only 12 strikeouts, leaving him four shy of 348.

On Friday, September 24, the Dodgers opened a season-ending, 10-game homestand against the St. Louis Cardinals. Los Angeles was riding a six-game winning streak but was still in second place, two games behind the Giants. That night they pulled off a come-from-behind win, which, together with a San Francisco loss, pulled them to within one game with 10 to play.

Twenty-two-game-winner Don Drysdale was scheduled to pitch for the Dodgers on Saturday afternoon, followed by Koufax, a 23-game winner, on Sunday, but manager Walter Alston flipped the order. He wanted Drysdale, a righty, to face the predominantly right-handed hitting Milwaukee Braves lineup twice in a four-game, season-ending series that was to begin on September 30.9

The Cardinals came into the September 25 contest in seventh place with a 75-77 record, their hopes of repeating as World Series champions dashed. The Dodgers had swept them in a three-game series in St. Louis the week before, but the Redbirds had taken four of six games in Los Angeles.

Cardinals manager Red Schoendienst gave the start to 22-year-old Nelson Briles, a rookie with 35 major-league appearances under his belt, all of them in relief. One week earlier, Briles (1-3 with a 3.29 ERA) had held the Dodgers to one hit over three innings and had allowed no earned runs in his last 15⅓ innings.

A crowd of 31,532 was on hand at Dodger Stadium, the largest for a Saturday in two months. They were greeted by seasonable southern California weather, with a game-time temperature in the low 70s, clearing skies, and a brisk breeze blowing out to right field.10

St. Louis’s Julián Javier started off the game with a single but was quickly erased when the next batter, Curt Flood, lined into a 5-3 double play. Lou Brock, a lefty who struggled to make contact against Koufax, became his first strikeout victim, ending the inning.11

An inning later, Koufax brought his strikeout total to 347 by punching out a pair of eight-time All-Stars: Dick Groat and Bill White.

Leading off the third inning for St. Louis, with the game still scoreless, was Bob Uecker, an understudy to regular backstop Tim McCarver. A lifetime .200 hitter, Uecker had owned Koufax that season, as he went 5-for-12 (.417) with a double and a home run.12 Koufax prevailed this time, making Uecker his 348th strikeout of the season, to pull into a tie with Feller. It didn’t take long for Koufax to reach 349. The very next batter, St. Louis native Mike Shannon, struck out swinging.13

With that, the stadium scoreboard flashed that Koufax had the record, and the crowd gave him a standing ovation. Koufax tipped his cap and got back to work, striking out Briles for the third out. Asked later about the ovation, Koufax said “During a game you’re a little embarrassed by it. I couldn’t very well take a bow … the score was nothing to nothing.”14

Koufax started the fourth with his sixth consecutive punch-out, whiffing Javier, then found himself “in the soup” after a single by Flood, a walk to Brock, and a wild pitch.15 He bailed himself out by retiring reigning NL MVP Ken Boyer on a popup and fanning Groat.

Briles worked around leadoff doubles in the fourth by Jim Gilliam and in the fifth by Rookie of the Year-to-be Jim Lefebvre, but his luck ran out in the sixth. The Dodgers tallied the first run of the game on Lefebvre’s two-out RBI single, scoring Willie Davis after the speedy center fielder had singled and stole second.16

The Cardinals had baserunners in innings five through seven, but each time Koufax avoided any damage. Uecker stroked the Cardinals’ third hit of the day in the fifth but was erased on an inning-ending double play grounder. Two-out walks to Flood and Brock in the sixth led to nothing further when Boyer grounded out. And in the seventh, Groat’s leadoff single was negated by another twin killing. Along the way, Koufax notched strikeouts nine and 10.

Koufax racked up two final strikeouts in the eighth, getting Shannon for a second time and Phil Gagliano, pinch-hitting for Briles.

Los Angeles added an insurance run in the bottom of the eighth off lefty Curt Simmons. Normally a starter, the 18-year veteran was making his first regular-season relief appearance in three years. Gilliam led off with a single and was removed for pinch-runner Nate Oliver, called up from Spokane the day before.17 Oliver advanced to second on a sacrifice and scored on Lou Johnson’s two-out double.

Handed a two-run lead for the first time in six starts, Koufax retired the first two Cardinals in the top of the ninth. Boyer followed with a single, bringing Groat to bat as the tying run. Groat, who had hit one home run off Koufax in 117 previous at-bats, flied out to Davis in center field, giving Koufax win number 24 and his seventh shutout.

After the game, Koufax was asked to compare breaking Feller’s record with his perfect game. “Setting a season-long record like this is a bigger thrill,” he replied. “This is something that you have to work for all season. The biggest part of the game is being consistent. I used to pitch one good game and the next five I couldn’t get anyone out.”18 Happy to get the win, Alston told reporters: “Koufax makes managing pretty easy.”19

The next day, Drysdale shut out the Cardinals, 1-0, which, coupled with a Giants loss in Milwaukee, pulled the two into a dead heat.

Koufax made two more regular-season appearances: a two-hit shutout of the Cincinnati Reds on September 29 and three days later, on October 2, a complete–game win over the Braves that sent the Dodgers to the World Series. Koufax fanned 13 in each of those starts, giving him 382 for the season.

Koufax’s major-league record stood until 1973, when California Angels right-hander Nolan Ryan recorded 383 strikeouts. More than a half-century later, Koufax’s 382 continues to stand tall as the NL record.20

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Carl Riechers and copy edited by Mike Eisenbath.

Photo credit: Sandy Koufax, Trading Card Database.

Sources 

In addition to the sources listed in the Notes, the author consulted Marc C. Aaron’s SABR biography of Sandy Koufax and the Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and Stathead.com websites, including box scores and play-by-play at these links:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/LAN/LAN196509250.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1965/B09250LAN1965.htm

Notes

1 Koufax replicated that feat four starts into the 1962 season, when he whiffed 18 Chicago Cubs.

2 The all-time major league single-season record for strikeouts is held by Matt Kilroy of the American Association’s 1886 Baltimore Orioles, who recorded 513 over 583 innings. At the time of Koufax’s assault on the single-season record, some sources credited Rube Waddell of the 1904 Philadelphia Athletics with 349 strikeouts, which would have made Waddell the record holder. For decades, major-league officials specified that Waddell’s 1904 total was 343, and therefore second to Feller. Beginning with its 1974 edition, Major League Baseball’s official statistical record, The Baseball Encyclopedia, credited Waddell with 349 strikeouts, as have all subsequent official repositories. Bob Hunter, “Sandy’s 365 Sets Record,” Los Angeles Herald Examiner, September 26, 1965: E1; Chauncey Durden, “A Monumental Digest,” Richmond (Virginia) Times-Dispatch, June 2, 1974: E1; The Baseball Encyclopedia (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1974), 27 and 1341.

3 During the 1964 season, Koufax managed his elbow issues by putting himself through a regimen of Capsolin salve heat treatments before starts and ice baths afterwards.

4 “Koufax Said Suffering from Traumatic Arthritis,” Toronto Globe and Mail, April 3, 1965: 30.

5 “Sandy’s Elbow O.K.,” Monrovia (California) News-Post, April 13, 1965: 12.

6 “Koufax Eyes Feller Strikeout Record,” Des Moines Tribune, May 31, 1965: 17.

7 Milton Richman, “No Longer Feller’s Day – Or Year,” Dayton (Ohio) News, September 6, 1965: 20.

8 George Lederer, “No Swollen Arm or Swollen Head for ‘Mr. Perfect’,” Long Beach (California) Press-Telegram, September 11, 1965: A-9.

9 Bob Hunter, “Koufax on the Firing Line,” Los Angeles Herald Examiner, September 25, 1965: C-1.

10 Winds at the 2 PM start, as measured at nearby Los Angeles International Airport, were blowing at 13 MPH out of the west-southwest. Weather data obtained from archived Los Angeles International Airport station data located at “Los Angeles, CA,” Weather Underground, https://www.wunderground.com/history/daily/us/ca/los-angeles/KLAX/date/1965-9-25, accessed September 2026.

11 Brock finished his career 12-for-65 (.185) against Koufax, and among the 56 batters who accumulated 50 or more plate appearances against Koufax, struck out at a higher rate than anyone else– 40 percent (28 times in 70 PA).

12 In his next plate appearance after the home run, Uecker received an intentional walk from Koufax. Uecker, aka “Mr. Baseball,” later called that free pass one of the two highlights of his career. “I was pretty proud of that until I heard that the commissioner wrote Koufax a letter telling him the next time something like that happened, he’d be fined for damaging the image of the game.” Eric Aron, “Bob Uecker,” SABR Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/bob-uecker/, accessed September 2026.

13 Frank Finch, “Koufax Cracks Feller Record,” Los Angeles Times, September 26, 1965: D-1.

14 Sid Ziff, “Red Hot Lefebvre,” Los Angeles Times, September 26, 1965: D-2.

15 Finch, “Koufax Cracks Feller Record.”

16 Davis finished the year second on the Dodgers in stolen bases behind the major-league stolen base leader, Maury Wills. The RBI gave Lefebvre at least one in five straight games and eight of the team’s 20 RBIs over that span.

17 “T. Davis Back, May Not Play,” Long Beach Press-Telegram, September 25, 1965: 10.

18 Ziff, “Red Hot Lefebvre.”

19 “Red Hot Lefebvre.”

20 Randy Johnson has come the closest to Koufax’s NL mark, racking up 372 strikeouts for the 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks.