Description:In an era when too many heroes have been toppled from too many pedestals, Sandy Koufax stands apart and alone, a legend who declined his own celebrity. As a pitcher, he was sublime, the ace of baseball lore. As a human being, he aspired to be the one thing his talent and his fame wouldn't allow: a regular guy. A Brooklyn kid, he was the product of the sedate and modest fifties who came to define and dominate baseball in the sixties. In Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy, former award-winning Washington Post sportswriter Jane Leavy delivers an uncommon baseball book, vividly re-creating the Koufax era, when presidents were believed and pitchers aspired to go the distance.

Verdict:In what can only be described as completely unabridged, Leavy's book has been mysteriously put together even without the participation of the great Koufax himself ! In so many ways this could have blown up in her face, but Leavy plowed on regardless and spoke to hundreds of people with something to share on the former Brooklyn/L.A. Dodger. People like Hank Aaron, Joe Torre, childhood friend and Mets co-owner Fred Wilpon and even the old Dodgers equipment manager ! They all give their heartfelt testimonies which luckily make for a rich baseball pastiche and an engaging look at the game's more innocent period. In as much as 'Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy' is not so much a biography of a ballplayer as a social history of baseball, Leavy uses the former star pitcher's career as the barometer of change here. Koufax was a hero to a generation on the basis of his pitching accomplishments. This biography will earn him further respect for a life well lived.