It’s so cool that Sandy Koufax was there for that
The legendary Dodger pitcher witnessed Clayton Kershaw’s redemption, and a World Series game for the ages
Sandy Koufax saw one of the greatest World Series games ever played. Screenshot of Fox Sports
By Louis Keene October 28, 2025
Sometime around the 16th inning of last night’s marathon World Series game, Dodger manager Dave Roberts admitted to a Fox sideline reporter he was on his last relief pitcher.
But some viewers, perhaps growing delirious as the clock approached midnight in Los Angeles, had an idea for who Roberts should call on next: a retired 89-year-old southpaw sitting behind home plate.
“If this game goes any longer,” one fan wrote on X, “Dodgers are gonna have to put in Koufax.”
It was one of the most improbable and most interminable baseball games ever played, a cosmic struggle between two powerhouses on the game’s biggest stage — cinema, if movies could run for 6 hours and 39 minutes. The Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays combined to use 44 players, 220 baseballs and throw 609 pitches. The game went so long there was a 14th-inning stretch — and then four more frames, before the Dodgers finally won 6-5 in the 18th inning.
Sandy Koufax, the Jewish sports hero and four-time World Series winner, was there for all of it. As the Dodgers and Blue Jays stayed deadlocked at 5 runs apiece for nearly 10 innings, Fox kept cutting to him, holding out for a breakthrough like every other diehard. More than a few marveled that he was still awake.
Sticking around meant Koufax witnessed not only one of the greatest baseball games ever played, but an incredible full-circle moment involving his heir apparent, Clayton Kershaw. Kershaw and Koufax, both of whom played their entire careers with the Dodgers, are said to be close; Kershaw, the only lefty to rival Koufax’s pitching dominance since the latter’s retirement in 1966, will retire after this World Series.
But comparisons between the two fall apart in the playoffs, where Kershaw has historically crumbled. Now 37, Kershaw was kept on the Dodgers’ World Series roster in case of emergency — an injury to a starting pitcher, for example, or other long-relief duties. Anything other than a Sisyphean set-up.
Instead, Dodger fans everywhere held their breath as Roberts called on Kershaw with the bases loaded and two outs in the 12th inning of a tie game. It was Kershaw’s first time pitching in extra-innings. All he needed was to get one out. This time, he did. As he walked off the mound, the broadcast cut first to Koufax applauding his old friend.
Nobody deserved this more than Clayton Kershaw. pic.twitter.com/Ja1Y2gCyTy
— Michael Bier (@MichaelJBier) October 28, 2025
One person wrote the scene was “as good as it gets for baseball history nerds.”
It must have pained Koufax to see his friend — Koufax-like in so many ways — fall short in the postseason so many times in the last 18 years. How cool is it that he was there to see Kershaw come through at the end? It must have meant a lot to Kershaw, too.
That was it for Kershaw, but not Koufax. Kershaw was replaced by Edgardo Henriquez, who was then replaced by journeyman right-hander Will Klein. Klein (not Jewish, to save you a search, though a few friends joked an unkempt red beard recalled a Chabad rabbi) had never thrown more than 30 pitches in a single appearance as a pro. On Monday, with no relief pitchers waiting behind him, Klein threw seventy-one, in a four-inning shutout performance that kept the Dodgers alive long enough for Freddie Freeman’s 18th-inning walkoff home run to deliver victory.
After the game, Koufax reportedly made his way to the Dodger clubhouse to congratulate Klein on his effort. It was well past midnight by the time he got there.
“Nice going,” Koufax told Klein, according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan.
You’d have to think Koufax had a moment in the clubhouse with Kershaw, too. Those words have not yet been revealed to us. What they shared on the field — and what fans watching got to share with them — is cool enough to suffice.
Sandy Koufax at the beginning of last night’s game. https://t.co/V6CAR3ldTI
— JonathanLightman (@JonathanLightm1) October 28, 2025
