He clinched the pennant for Los Angeles for the second straight year with a complete game on two days rest. In the last 26 days of his career, including a loss in the 1966 World Series, Koufax started seven times, threw five complete-game wins and had a 1.07 ERA. The world, including his teammates, was shocked. Reporters applauded him, then lined up for his autograph. Once in a great while he'd say, Ah-ha! That's it!" He'd say, Ah, it needs a little salt or a little oregano, or something. He was a fabulous cook, but he was almost never quite satisfied. And he was that way in everything he did. He used himself as his only measure of excellence. "He didn't set out to beat someone or make anyone look bad. "I think he pitched for the excellence of it," Keleshian says. He defines himself by the fullness of his life and the excellence he seeks in every corner of it, not the way the rest of the word defines him: through the narrow prism of his career as a pitcher. He didn't just take up fishing, he moved to Idaho for some of the best salmon fishing in the world. Later in life it wasn't enough to jog he ran a marathon. It wasn't enough to cook - he became a gourmet cook, whipping up dishes not by following recipes but by substituting ingredients and improvising by feel. It wasn't enough to dabble in carpentry and home electronics - he built and installed a sound system throughout the house. He brought that same meticulousness to Maine. He would rest those famously large hands on the Formica tabletop, one of those mini-jukeboxes to his left and give his order to Annette, the waitress, in a voice as soft and smooth as honey. He preferred the clearly delineated no-trespassing zone of a booth. He would walk past the long counter up front, the one with the swivel stools that, good Lord, gave complete strangers license to strike up a conversation. He often wore one of those red-and-black-checkered shirts you expect to see in Maine, though he wasn't a hunter. The trim, darkly handsome man would come alone, without his wife, nearly every morning at six o'clock for breakfast at Dick's Diner in Ellsworth, Maine, about 14 miles from their home. It was always the one in back, farthest from the door. The story, by current SI writer Tom Verducci, originally appeared in the Jissue. Koufax, the youngest person elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame, was the first pitcher to throw four no-hitters and win three Cy Young Awards. Today's selection is on Sandy Koufax, whom the magazine named its favorite athlete of the 20th century. In honor of Sports Illustrated's 60th anniversary, SI.com is republishing, in full, 60 of the best stories ever to run in the magazine's history.
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