Baseball: Too Many Shots, Too Many Pills

"It was a year," he said, "of a few too many shots, and a few too many pills. I was walking around sick to my stomach; I was half high on the mound.

Fifteen or eighteen cortisone shots made the decision for me."

With those words Sandy Koufax, the highest-paid player (at $125,000) and one of the best pitchers in baseball his tory, retired last week — at 30. In the last five years with the Los Angeles Dodgers, mostly on the strength of a smashing fastball and a jug-handle curve, Lefthander Koufax has won 111 games, lost only 34, pitched...