Communication between pitchers and catchers is crucial, and it extends far beyond the signals flashed before each pitch. A casual conversation between Koufax and catcher Norm Sherry in the spring of 1961 had a profound effect on Koufax's career, and may have saved Koufax from early retirement.

Koufax was a 19-year-old pitcher with limited experience when he joined the Dodgers in 1955. Dodger catcher Rube Walker remembered him as being nervous, and that he threw in a style veteran pitchers called "nervous fast."

There were some who thought Koufax would never make it as a major league pitcher because he would never overcome his speed and wildness. When Herb Olson was a rookie catcher with the Dodgers, Al Campanis told him to catch Koufax. Campanis had been catching Koufax, but he found it difficult to hang onto his fastball. Seeing Olson, Campanis told him to take his place catching Koufax, but he didn't tell him why. Later, Olson approached Campanis and said, "I don't know why it is, but when I catch Koufax, I have a tough time seeing the ball."

Hitters sometimes had the same problem, and in an era before protective batting helmets, when hitters wore only their cloth caps to the plate, batters were reluctant to dig in against a wild kid who reared back and fired fastballs that ranged in the mid- to high nineties. Ed Bouchee said that when Koufax first came up, no one wanted to get in the batter's box against him. Hitters hoped the kid knew where his pitches were going, Bouchee said, but he didn't. Carl Furillo thought that Koufax didn't even know where home plate was half the time.

While some Dodgers resisted taking batting practice against Koufax, Erskine said the widely circulated stories about the team as a whole not batting against him are more legend than fact.

"Hitters only get so many pitches in practice," he said, "and they want them all to be strikes. But there are a lot of pitchers who learned how to control the ball by throwing batting practice. It's required when you're young because most of us have to learn how to control the ball. I don't think Sandy ever had a problem where a hitter said, 'Hey, I'm not hitting today. Koufax is throwing.' They hated to hit against Labine worse than they did Koufax because Labine threw a heavy sinker, and when he'd throw batting practice on a cold day and hit guys on the fists, they would moan."

Hank Sauer of the Giants said that when Koufax first came up, he threw hard, had a good curve and changeup, but could never get anything over the plate.

Koufax's wildness caused a dilemma for both him and the Dodgers. Manager Walt Alston didn't want to pitch him because he was nervous and wild, but Koufax felt he couldn't overcome his wildness until he gained experience.

In a column that appeared on June 14, 1956, Dick Young of the New York Daily News wrote that Alston showed little confidence in Koufax:

A pitching pinch has to develop before Walt uses the kid. Then, it seems, Sandy must pitch a shutout or the bullpen is working full force and the kid will be yanked at the first long foul ball.

Young cited two instances in which Alston mismanaged Koufax. The first came in Cincinnati during a game in which Koufax started only because Drysdale had a sore arm. The game was tied 3-3 in the seventh, with Koufax having surrendered a solo home run to Frank Robinson in the first inning and a two-run triple in the fifth that was a catchable ball. Despite walking just one batter through six innings, Sandy was lifted for a pinch hitter in the seventh and replaced by Clem Labine. Labine pitched the next two innings, yielded three runs, and was tagged as the losing pitcher.

Against St. Louis on the same western road trip, Koufax took a 3-1 lead into the fourth when he walked the leadoff hitter and went to a 2-0 count on the next batter. Rather than let Koufax try to pitch his way out of the inning, Alston took him from the game and brought in reliever Carl Erskine, who allowed seven hits over the next four innings. After the game, Alston told reporters that Koufax, who had given up just three hits in three innings, didn't have good stuff, but Erskine did.

Erskine recalled Koufax's inconsistencies as a young pitcher.

"Sometimes he had real problems early and just couldn't get with it," Erskine remembered. "But if he got into a groove early, he was awesome. He was just not polished enough or refined enough to be consistent. Sandy's struggles were with himself, to bring himself to a major league level as a pitcher. He had spurts (of greatness) in those early years, and that's why they stayed with him. On any given day, he was awesome. But then two outings after that, he'd have trouble getting out of the first inning. But the potential was definitely there.

"Sandy and I used to talk some and he would ask me questions about various things. He was always very congenial, never made any waves, never saw Sandy upset about a game or a play. He was just real cordial, a real gentleman. He was well liked. Everybody kidded him a little bit being a younger player."

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