Sandy Koufax' Perfect Gingergame

About a month ago, my roommates told me about an amazing tradition they have every holiday season. Having only moved in a few months ago, I'd never heard about it (even though I've known them for a long time), but as a new member of the house, I was invited to take part this year.

The tradition is this: my roommates (a pair of Jewish brothers), their two older siblings, and a couple close friends get together and build an important event in Jewish history, entirely out of gingerbread (well, and candy and icing... everything on the board is edible). Over the course of the six-year tradition it's always been something biblical, but this year was a little different. Being huge baseball fans, they decided to pay homage to the most famous Jewish baseball player in history by constructing a replica of Sandy Koufax' perfect game in 1965.

Needless to say, as a baseball nut myself, I was looking forward to this from the moment it was brought up. But I'll let the photos do the rest of the talking.

Several weeks in advance: this elaborate and precise plan was drawn by a current
law student and former theater major. Go figure.

Friday: materials.

The gingerbread, mixed a day in advance, prepares itself mentally

Saturday afternoon: they see me rollin, we bakin

The 32x40" board, tinfoiled and ready for construction

Saturday evening: gingerbread starts to roll out of the oven and the vision begins to take shape

What would eventually become light towers turned out a little more phallic than anticipated

The first wave of icing allows construction to begin

The commencement of bleacher erection (haha, erection)

The infield and dugout get touched up

After laying down the infield dirt, our groundskeeper devises an ingenious
method for removing stray clumps from the outfield grass

The light towers are erected (haha, erected), foul lines are drawn, the crowd files in, and the masterpiece is completed.

The concession area featured three varieties of food and a beer stand

Washrooms were located in the concession area

One of my roomies' traditions is that Jews are always depicted as Gummi Bears while non-Jews are Santas. Koufax, obviously, was the only Gummi Bear on the field

The home dugout of course features the home logo

A heated exchange broke out, as they are wont to do, in the bleachers

Unfortunately, the scoreboard did not feature video highlights as that is not a technology that has
found its way into the gingerbread/icing world

Koufax' strikeouts were all accounted for

These two fans had the best seats in the house

But, typically, weren't watching the game

The achievement was commemorated with a plaque engraved into the ground
beyond the outfield bleachers

Fin