The famously reclusive Koufax, now 79, who declined to be interviewed for this story, is not regarded as a particularly devout Jew, but he never pitched during Yom Kippur in his career. In 1961, he did pitch a night game after the day of atonement officially ended at sundown. He threw 205 pitches over 13 innings while striking out 15 to beat the Cubs that game.

Koufax later said he did not agonize over whether to pitch Game 1 of the ’65 World Series.

“There was no hard decision for me,” Koufax told ESPN in 2000. “It was just a thing of respect. I wasn’t trying to make a statement, and I had no idea that it would impact that many people.”

Nor was it an issue with his Dodgers teammates.

“Nobody said a word. Nobody thought a bad thing about him,” says Wes Parker, the first baseman on that 1965 L.A. team. “We respected him because he was doing it because of his religion. He was being true to himself.”

Read the article “Fifty Years Ago, Sandy Koufax Refused to Pitch a World Series Game — For His Religion” on espn.go.com.