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Baseball connects us to our past in ways few other sports can. Today, I'm taking you back to the streets of Brooklyn in 1955, where a little girl fell in love with the Dodgers while her family was divided in their baseball loyalties. My father cheered for Willie Mays and the Giants, my brother worshipped Mickey Mantle and the Yankees, but my heart belonged to Brooklyn's Boys of Summer.

The crown jewel of my baseball memories remains Sandy Koufax, the Left Arm of God himself. Born in December 1935, Koufax transformed baseball during his 12 seasons with the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers. His achievements remain staggering - three unanimous Cy Young Awards, an MVP season in 1963, and a Hall of Fame induction at just 36 years old. What's most remarkable is how Koufax dominated the sport despite retiring at 30 due to chronic elbow pain, long before modern sports medicine might have extended his career.

My passionate defense of Koufax comes in response to a Los Angeles Times article suggesting Clayton Kershaw has surpassed him as the greatest Dodgers pitcher ever. While Kershaw deserves celebration for reaching 3,000 strikeouts, comparing modern players to legends from different eras often fails to account for crucial context. Today's pitchers benefit from advanced training, carefully managed workloads, and medical treatments that simply didn't exist during Koufax's time. Some baseball legacies should stand untouched, honored for not just what was accomplished but how those feats were achieved. For this Brooklyn girl, Sandy Koufax remains baseball's ultimate pitching icon, regardless of what modern sportswriters might claim.

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