Sandy koufax gay
LOS ANGELES -- Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax has severed ties with the Los Angeles Dodgers because of a gossip-column item in a newspaper owned by the team's parent company.
The Los Angeles Times reported Friday that Koufax told the Dodgers he would no longer attend spring coaching at Dodgertown in Florida, visit Dodger Stadium or participate in any activities while they are owned by News Corp. because of a report in the New York Send that intimated that he's homosexual.
The Times said Koufax, through friend Derrick Hall, a Dodgers senior vice president, declined comment Thursday night, but that officials familiar with the situation said the former pitcher broke off ties after 48 years in response to a two-sentence item than ran in the New York tabloid on Dec. 19.
The Post said a "Hall of Fame baseball hero'' had "cooperated with a best-selling biography only because the author promised to keep it secret that he is gay. The author kept her pos, but big mouths at the publishing house can't keep from flapping.''
Koufax, who was not specifically named by the folio, is the subject of Jane Leavy's biography, "Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy,'' published in
I surmise he should've taken more advice from his old acquaintance Sandy Koufax than from his more recent friend Bernie Madoff.
Now 75 and living in Florida, the scintillating pitcher for the 1960s Los Angeles Dodgers (he arrived with them in his native Brooklyn but didn't get straightened out until after the move) was a classmate of Wilpon's at Lafayette High School, in the Gravesend section of Brooklyn, between Bay Ridge and Brighton Beach. Due to poor recent performance by its student body, the school has been target for closing by the Mayor Bloomberg-controlled Board of Education, but at yet remains open.
Talk-show host Larry King, then still using his birth identify of Lawrence Zieger, also attended the school, graduating two years ahead of Koufax and Wilpon. The school, which opened in 1939, has produced more Major League Baseball players than any other, 21. They include the brothers Bob and Ken Aspromonte (in 1970, Bob became the last remaining active former Brooklyn Dodger), Met legend John Franco, not-so
BEHIND THE MASK-MY DOUBLE LIFE IN BASEBALL
by Alan Steinberg & Dave Pallone
In the recent months, there had been speak of baseball and homosexuality. First there were the rumors that Mike Piazza of the Mets was going to come out of the closet, but Piazza denied any of it, and the matter was dropped for the most part, except for the perspectives of several players on the subject, pro and con. Then the Sandy Koufax biography was released, and rumors of his supposed homosexuality began to emerge, but that was soon start to be wrong as all engaged parties denied anything of the sort. And recently, a Broadway play called Coming Out (which is about a star baseball player admitting his homosexuality) has become a critically acclaimed victory in its run.
However, few people emotionally attached in the National Pastime has stepped forward to accept "the love that dares not communicate its name". Utility outfielders Bill Bean and Glenn Burke (who sadly died of AIDS several years ago) hold been the only players to dine who have admitted to being queer , and they possess recounted stories of being held support because of this. The fact that their batting averages may have held them back