Sandy Koufax's Perfect Game

Sandy Koufax's Perfect Game

Sandy Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers pitched a perfect game in Major League Baseball against the Chicago Cubs at Dodger Stadium on September 9, 1965. Koufax, by retiring 27 consecutive batters without allowing any to reach base, became the sixth pitcher of the modern era, eighth overall, to throw a perfect game. The game was Koufax's fourth no-hitter, breaking Bob Feller's Major League record of three (and later broken by Nolan Ryan, in 1981). Koufax struck out 14 opposing batters, the most ever recorded in a perfect game, and matched only by San Francisco Giants pitcher, Matt Cain, on June 13, 2012.

The game was also notable for the high quality of the performance by the opposing pitcher, Bob Hendley of the Cubs. Hendley pitched a one-hitter and allowed only two batters to reach base. Both pitchers had no-hitters intact until the seventh inning. The only run that the Dodgers scored was unearned. The game holds the record for fewest base runners (both teams), with two; the next lowest total is four.

Koufax's perfect game is a memorable part of baseball lore. Jane Leavy's biography of Koufax is structured around a re-telling of the game. An article in Salon.com honoring broadcaster Vin Scully focuses on his play-by-play call of the perfect game. This game was selected in a 1995 poll of members of the Society for American Baseball Research as the greatest game ever pitched.