Left: Sandy Koufax. Right: Rabbi Moshe Feller.

Did Sandy Koufax Lay Tefilin During 1965 World Series?

That is the question posed by Tablet Magazine, after uncovering information that the Hall-of-Fame pitching legend, who famously refused to play in the first game of the 1965 World Series because it coincided with Yom Kippur, was visited in his hotel room the next day by Rabbi Moshe Feller, Director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Minnesota.

The ‘urban legend’ surrounding Koufax was that the day after he refused to pitch for the L.A. Dodgers against the Minnesota Twins, cementing his legacy in the history of Jews and sports, he was visited in his S. Paul Hotel by the Chabad Shliach of the city, who helped him put on Tefilin.

Tablet Magazine writer Aaron R. Katz successfully contacted both Rabbi Moshe Feller and Sandy Koufax himself, but was still unable to ascertain whether Sandy Koufax did or didn’t put on Tefilin during the 1965 World Series.

Read the full story here.

9 Comments

  • duh

    Who really cares? Perhaps if we stop focussing on the celebrities we chapp & work on keeping our own kids ON the derech, we might be better off.

    • Ezra

      Your “who really cares?” itself might be the reason why your children are not staying on the derech. Yes, the question of whether another Jew – be he a celebrity or not – performed a mitzvah should be something interesting and exciting.

  • Who really cares?!?!?

    I believe some are forgetting the Rebbe’s dream… Every jew…. Every jew!!!!

  • The Rebbe ZY"A cares!

    In fact, the Rebbe ZY”A cared enough about this
    incident to have spoken about it in a Sicha on
    Simchas Torah that year!

    • Learn to read

      If you had actually taken the 16 seconds to read the article summary above you wouldn’t be asking such a question.

  • Just heard on radio that he put them on....

    On the 4/7/14 John Batchelor show (WABC radio 770 am), in a conversation with Malcolm Hoenlein (Council of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations), it was stated by both Batchelor and Hoenlein that Koufax DID put on tefillin before pitching two of the later games of the World Series that year, and that he’d pitched really well for those games.

    They also mentioned the article in Tablet Magazine, but they both just said that Koufax did put on tefillin.

    But the Tablet Magazine article writer did not get an answer about whether or not Koufax ever put on those tefillin. He asked both Rabbi Feller, and Koufax.

    Maybe this is a mistake on Batchelor’s and Hoenlein’s part?