Echoes of Sandy Koufax: When Jersey phenom Robert Kaminsky pitches, it harkens back to his idol and fellow Jew - and a Brooklyn-born baseball icon

Eighteen big-league scouts are pressed against a chain-like fence behind home plate, eyes and radar guns trained on the mound, the whole pack of them as crammed in as straphangers on a rush-hour subway. The object of their fascination is a 6-0, 195-pound kid who wears No. 21 in the white and green of St. Joseph Regional High School of Montvale, N.J., a sleepy-eyed senior who is almost completely ambidextrous, writes right-handed and passes a football the same way, but throws a baseball lefthanded, with as gifted an arm as you will see.

On a chilly, windswept day at Ramapo High School in Franklin Lakes, N.J., 18-year-old Robert Kaminsky doesn't disappoint his audience, pitching a three-hit shutout and striking out 15 hitters, doing nothing to diminish his status as a likely first-round selection in baseball's June draft, and one of the best hardball stories around.

Go ahead and name the last time you ran across a high-school lefthander who has a 94 MPH fastball and a hammer of a curveball, a Jewish kid whose prized possession is a Sandy Koufax baseball card that he keeps in an acrylic case on his bedroom shelf.

"Sandy Koufax was a Jewish guy playing baseball, and so am I, and that's rare," Kaminsky says. "Even being in the same sentence with him would be an incredible honor."

It would be ludicrous, of course, to compare a high-school senior to a man who isn't merely a Hall of Famer, but in the middle of most discussions about the greatest pitchers in baseball history. Nobody is putting that on Rob Kaminsky, but have you seen the stop-action photos of his delivery, the way his left elbow leads the same way Koufax's did? The way the ball comes out of his hand and the wicked drop of his three-quarter overhand breaking ball?

"He's a major-league curveball right now," says Frank Rendini, a Jersey-based scout for the Seattle Mariners.

Adds an NL scout who asked to remain nameless, "There's no question about his ability. The big point he has in his favor is that he's a pitcher more than a thrower. He understands you don't have to break the radar gun to win. For the most part he can put the ball right where he wants. That's not something you see from very many kids his age."

The scout smiles and talks about the obsession in scouting departments these days with drafting tall pitchers.

"We may have to waive the 6-foot rule for this kid," the scout says.

After Saturday's 4-1, four-hit victory over Wayne Hills, Kaminsky's record for the season is 4-0 with an 0.00 ERA (the Wayne Hills' run was unearned), and 54 strikeouts and five walks in 26 innings.  He has seven career no-hitters, the most recent of them coming in a five-inning, 10-0 decision over arch-rival Don Bosco that gave St. Joseph coach Frank Salvano his 556th career victory, more than any Bergen County baseball coach in history. St. Joe's alums include John Flaherty, the  former big-league catcher and current Yankee broadcaster, though Salvano says Kaminsky, who is also a first-rate centerfielder and the team's best hitter (he's hitting .440  with 13 home runs and 70 RBI in his career), compares with any of them.

All this, and Kaminsky has even has set up a Strikeout Challenge, getting pledges for every strikeout this season, with proceeds going to the pediatric cancer unit at Englewood Hospital in his hometown.

"I've been doing this 26 years and he's not just the best player I've ever coached; he's one of the best people I've ever coached," Salvano says. "If you walked in our locker room, you couldn't tell Rob from anybody else. He just wants to be one of the guys and help his team win games."

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Sandy Koufax has had a special place in the Kaminsky family for decades. Rob's father, Alan Kaminsky, a civil litigator for Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith in downtown Manhattan, grew up idolizing Koufax, having learned from his own father, Bernard, about Koufax opting not to pitch on Yom Kippur in Game 1 of the 1965 World Series against the Twins.

"(That) decision has been a source of inspiration for legions of sports fans, both Jews and non-Jews, (and) has taken on legendary significance," says Alan Kaminsky, who also deeply admired the way Koufax handled his acclaim, and gracefully retired at the peak of his career.

Still, Sandy Koufax was the last thing anybody had in mind when Bernard, Alan and five-year-old Robert went out in the back yard one day and were astounded to see the little kid catch one towering pop fly after another.

"Five-year-old kids are not supposed to be able to do that," Bernard Kaminsky told Alan.

The youngest of Alan and Donna Kaminsky's three children, Robert excelled in Little League, switch-hitting and sometimes throwing lefty, sometimes righty.

"I could throw pretty well righty, but I didn't really know where the ball was going," Rob Kaminsky says. A coach told him that if really could throw just as well or better lefty, he might as well be a lefty. By the time Kaminsky was 12, he was working with Rendini, the Mariners' scout, at a baseball complex in Clifton, N.J. called Lefty's.

The scout was impressed with the kid's poise and athleticism, and even then told a couple of Kaminsky's uncles, "He is going to be a good one." Rendini was no less taken by Kaminsky's makeup when he saw him at the 15-strikeout game in Ramapo, the way he managed the game, and his emotions.

"His work ethic is second to none," Rendini says. "He wants to get better. He's always open to ideas. He's not one of those kids who says, 'I don't have to listen to you.' He's trying to fulfill his dream, and he goes about the game very professionally."

The New Jersey Gatorade player of the year as a junior, Kaminsky has signed a letter of intent to enroll at the University of North Carolina, though whether he gets there will hinge in large part on how high he is drafted (Baseball America projects him as the No. 26 pick in the first round, rating him the third best high-school lefthander). Kaminsky, who is being advised by Casey Close, Derek Jeter's longtime agent, insists that nothing has been determined – that he fell in love with North Carolina, and plans to become a Tar Heel, but is ruling out nothing.

"I'm looking for answers, the same as you," Kaminsky says. "It's a pretty good choice to have either way."

In the meantime, Rob Kaminsky has one goal foremost in mind. In last year's state semifinal, Don Bosco beat St. Joseph's, 2-0, scoring the only runs Kaminsky gave up the whole season.

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"That left a very bitter taste in my mouth," Kaminsky says. "The only thing that matters right now is winning a state championship."

At his first start of the spring, Kaminsky drew about 1,000 fans to the game, and the customary knot of scouts. The crowds and the scouts keep coming, with their radar guns and evaluation forms, a kid's baseball future hinging, at least in part, on their jottings. You'd think it would be immensely unnerving, but Kaminsky seems oblivious, going about his routine as if he were pitching in an empty sandlot.

His love of the game runs so deep that his entire Bar Mitzvah five years ago was baseball-themed, complete with Robert and his friends belting out a rousing rendition of John Fogerty's "Centerfield" on the dance floor.

His respect for the game, say coaches who have worked with and against him, is no less deep.

"Baseball is a humbling game," Kaminsky says. "I don't really notice who's there or who's behind the plate or who is watching. I'm just trying to put my team in a position to win the game every time I'm out there."

Major League Baseball's June free-agent draft is scheduled to begin June 6, the same day that St. Joseph Regional hopes to play in the state championship game. Rob Kaminsky, the kid honored to be in the same sentence with Sandy Koufax, doesn't want to get too far ahead of himself. There are lots of games to play before then, lots of good teams that will want to knock them off. College life, a baseball future of vast promise, is still ahead of him. The plan is for Robert Kaminsky to start the championship game, using his left arm.

"It's all about the team," Robert Kaminsky says. "I'd rather give up five runs and win than give up two runs and lose the way we did last year."