Despite the fact that Koufax was not known as a knockdown pitcher, he did throw purpose pitches inside. Both Drysdale and St. Louis Cardinals' ace Bob Gibson recalled an incident in their respective memories when Koufax threw inside to Lou Brock.

During the '65 season, Koufax shut the Cardinals out the first three times he faced them. St. Louis hitters wanted desperately to find a way to beat him. Brock, the Cardinals' leadoff hitter and superb base-stealer, decided to try to beat Koufax by bunting on him. Brock's plan was successful. The first time he faced Koufax, he bunted for a base hit, stole second and then third, and scored on a sacrifice fly. Later in the game, Brock bunted successfully against Koufax again.

The Cardinals had been trying to figure out for years how to handle Koufax, and they considered Brock's strategy a major breakthrough. They also realized that the next move belonged to Koufax.

Sitting on the St. Louis bench, Gibson knew that Koufax somehow had to stop Brock. The Cardinals' fireballer knew how he would stop someone who was bunting on him, but he also knew that Koufax was not an aggressive man by nature. When Brock returned to bat against Koufax, Gibson watched with interest to see if the Dodger ace, having been bunted into a corner, had it in him to take control of the situation.

Watching from the opposite side of the diamond in the Dodger clubhouse, Drysdale knew what was coming next. The fact that the Cardinals had scored a run without a base hit, Drysdale said, made Koufax irate. Sitting next to Jim Lefebvre, nicknamed "Frenchy," Drysdale watched Brock dig in against Koufax.

"Frenchy," Drysdale said, "I feel sorry for that man about what he just did."

"Who?"

"Brock," Drysdale answered. "Sandy doesn't appreciate that sort of thing. Sandy gets mad enough when you beat him with base hits. But when you score runs without hits, look out."

Koufax followed by hitting Brock in the left shoulder with his fastball. Drysdale thought the thud of Koufax's fastball against Brock was so loud it reverberated throughout the stadium. Brock, he said, fell like a deer that had been shot. Standing up, Brock refused to show he was hurt and would not rub his shoulder until he returned to the dugout. None of the Cardinals charged the mound; in the sixties, players still regarded hit batsmen as an accepted part of the game.

Koufax's message had been sent, and he had done it in a fashion that a fierce competitor like Gibson could appreciate. Koufax, he knew, was the nicest of the Dodger pitchers; but Koufax could not have achieved the success he had, Gibson thought, if he did not assert himself on the mound.

To Gibson, the Brock incident showed how Koufax raised the level of competition by claiming his territory and daring the opposition to take it from him.

When the Dodgers faced the all-conquering Yankees in the '63 World Series, Koufax was named the Game One starter in Yankee Stadium against New York ace Whitey Ford. These were the Bronx Bombers, the Yankees of Mantle and Maris, and they sought a third consecutive world championship. Two years earlier, the Bombers had set a major league record by bashing 240 homers.

The pre-Series articles were a tribute to the Yankee dynasty, and Koufax geared himself for the showdown. Feeling he had to prove to his teammates and himself that New York was a team of baseball players and not a pride of supermen, he went at them with his moving fastball and corkscrew curve, and struck out a Series record 15 batters.

Pitcher Ed Roebuck, a teammate of Koufax in the early sixties, noticed the same aggressive trait Billy Pierce did. Koufax, Roebuck said, was modest to the point of seeming embarrassed at his own success, yet he never fooled around on the mound. He didn't waste time trying to neutralize batters, and he rarely went to 3-2 counts. "He'd get the batter on three pitches," said Roebuck.

Tim McCarver, a baseball analyst and catcher for the St. Louis Cardinals in the sixties, agreed. When Koufax got ahead of a hitter in the count, McCarver thought, the at-bat was over.

McCarver was Gibson's batterymate during the Cardinals' championship run from 1964 to 1968, and he appreciated the close pitcher-catcher bond between Koufax and Roseboro. The two were a battery with the Dodgers from 1958 to 1966, and Koufax believed that he and Roseboro owned such a complete rapport "it was as if there were only one mind involved."

McCarver could relate, because he maintained a solid relationship with Gibson and later with a young St. Louis southpaw named Steve Carlton. The two were so close that when Carlton was dealt to Philadelphia in 1972, he asked Phillies' management to import McCarver as well.

Carlton preferred McCarver catching him, and in time some called McCarver Carlton's "caddie." McCarver said later that when he and Carlton die, they're going to be buried 60 feet and six inches apart-the distance from home plate to the pitcher's mound.

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