Baseball's Best: The Hall of Fame Gallery.

First edition of this handsomely illustrated tribute to the immortals of Cooperstown, presenting a portrait and life story of every member of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Quarto, original green half-cloth, illustrated with black-and-white photographs. Association copy, inscribed by Martin Appel to one of the greatest players ever to take the field, "To Sandy Koufax, The best baseball player of my lifetime (only I couldn't say that in here). Sincerely, Marty Appel." Sandy Koufax is widely regarded as one of the most dominant pitchers in the history of Major League Baseball, a left-handed southpaw whose six seasons of unmatched brilliance with the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1961 to 1966 produced statistics and achievements that remain the standard against which all pitchers are measured. Inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972 at the age of thirty-six, the youngest player ever so honored at that time, Koufax won three Cy Young Awards, was named the National League's Most Valuable Player in 1963, and led the Dodgers to three World Series championships. He threw four no-hitters, including a perfect game in 1965, and posted a career ERA of 2.76 alongside 2,396 strikeouts in an era of genuine competition. His decision to sit out Game 1 of the 1965 World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur made him a revered and iconic figure in the American Jewish community, and his retirement at thirty years old due to traumatic arthritis in his left elbow only deepened the sense of a career whose brevity made its brilliance all the more extraordinary. Appel, through his long career as Public Relations Director of the New York Yankees and his decades as the foremost chronicler of baseball history, knew Koufax well enough to contact him directly on matters of the sport, with Koufax responding personally and warmly. A relationship between two Brooklyn-born Jewish Americans who approached the game from opposite sides of New York's great mid-century rivalry and arrived, in different ways, at the same place of enduring distinction within it. Near fine in a very good dust jacket with soiling and tape remnants to the extremities. From the library of Sandy Koufax. An exceptional association.