Sanford "Sandy" Koufax ( /ˈkoʊfæks/; born Sanford Braun, December 30, 1935) is an American former left-handed baseball pitcher who played his entire 12-year Major League Baseball (MLB) career for the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers (1955–1966). Retiring at the peak of his career, in 1972 he became, at age 36 and 20 days, the youngest player ever elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame .
Koufax's career peaked with a run of six outstanding seasons from 1961 to 1966, before arthritis in his left elbow ended his career prematurely at age 30. He was named the National League's Most Valuable Player in 1963. He also won the 1963, 1965, and 1966 Cy Young Awards by unanimous votes, making him the first 3-time Cy Young winner in baseball history and the only one to win 3 times when the award was for all of baseball, not just one league. In each of his Cy Young seasons, Koufax won the pitcher's triple crown by leading the NL in wins, strikeouts, and earned run average. Koufax's totals would also have led the American League in those seasons.
Vincent Edward Scully (born November 29, 1927) is an American sportscaster, known primarily as the play-by-play voice of the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team on Prime Ticket, KCAL-TV and KABC radio. His 63 seasons with the Dodgers (1950–present) is the longest of any broadcaster with a single club in professional sports history, and he is second by a year to only Tommy Lasorda in terms of length of years with the Dodgers organization in any capacity.
Born in The Bronx, Scully grew up in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan. He made ends meet by delivering beer and mail, pushing garment racks, and cleaning silver in the basement of the Pennsylvania Hotel in New York City. His father was a silk salesman; his mother a Roman Catholic homemaker of Irish descent with red hair like her son. Scully attended high school at Fordham Preparatory School in the Bronx. He knew he wanted to be a sports announcer the moment he became fascinated with football broadcasts on his radio.
Scully began his career as a student broadcaster and journalist at Fordham University. While at Fordham, he helped found its FM radio station WFUV (which now presents a Vin Scully Lifetime Achievement Award each year), was assistant sports editor for Volume 28 of The Fordham Ram his senior year, sang in a barbershop quartet, played center field for the Fordham Rams baseball team, called radio broadcasts for Rams baseball, football, and basketball, got a degree, and sent about 150 letters to stations along the Eastern seaboard. He got only one response, from CBS Radio affiliate WTOP in Washington, which made him a fill-in.
Donald Scott "Don" Drysdale (July 23, 1936 – July 3, 1993) was a Major League Baseball player and Hall of Fame right-handed pitcher with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He was one of the dominant starting pitchers of the 1960s, and became a radio and television broadcaster following his playing career. The Disney character Herbie has the number 53 since that was Drysdale's number.
Drysdale was born in Van Nuys, Los Angeles, California and attended Van Nuys High School, where one of his classmates was actor Robert Redford. While there have been assertions that Redford also played on the high school baseball team with Drysdale, and Drysdale covered for Redford by backing these up, classmates recall that Redford never actually played baseball.
Pitching for the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers, he teamed with Sandy Koufax during the late 1950s and early-middle 1960s to form one of the most dominating pitching duos in history. The hurler (nicknamed "Big D" by fans) used brushback pitches and a sidearm fastball to intimidate batters, similar to his fierce fellow Hall of Famer Bob Gibson. His 154 hit batsmen remains a modern National League record.
Louis Clark "Lou" Brock (born June 18, 1939) is an American former professional baseball player. He began his Major League Baseball career with the Chicago Cubs but, spent the majority of his career as the left fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals. Brock was best known for breaking Ty Cobb's all-time major league stolen base record. He is currently a special instructor coach for the St. Louis Cardinals. Brock was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1985.
Brock was born in El Dorado, Arkansas to a family of sharecroppers. His family moved to Collinston, Louisiana when he was two years old. While his family didn't have much money, he said that he never felt poor because,"If you don't have something, you don't miss it." Brock grew up as a fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers, the team that included Jackie Robinson, Don Newcombe and Roy Campanella. Although he didn't play in organized baseball until he reached the 11th grade, he learned much about the sport from listening to Cardinals radio broadcaster Harry Caray describe the way major league hitters stood at the plate. After attending high school in Mer Rouge, Louisiana, he received academic assistance to attend Southern University in Baton Rouge but, when a low grade in his first semester meant the possibility of losing his scholarship, he decided to try out for the school's baseball team in order to secure an athletic scholarship.
Eddie Clarence Murray (born February 24, 1956), nicknamed "Steady Eddie", is a former Major League Baseball first baseman and designated hitter. He was known as one of the most reliable and productive hitters of his era. Murray is regarded as one of the best switch hitters ever to play the game. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2003.
Murray was the eighth child of twelve and still has 5 sisters and 4 brothers, and has often quipped that as a child, he did not have to go far for a pick-up baseball game. The games were quite fierce and his older brothers never let him win. He carried that competitive edge to each of his next levels of baseball. At his Hall of Fame induction, Murray thanked his little league coach, Clifford Prelow, for teaching him not just the game of baseball but also love for the game as well. Prelow, an ex-Dodger minor leaguer, also worked his boys hard; making them run out every ground ball and threatening them with 100 yard wind sprints if they did not work. Prelow remembers that young Murray never earned that punishment. Later, Murray attended Locke High School in Los Angeles, California, where he batted .500 as a senior and was a teammate of Ozzie Smith.