This lifelong Red Sox fan created a bronze sculpture of a Dodgers player for his yard
"I get up in the morning, I have a cup of coffee, and I look at this guy," Robert Gaynor said. "He’s my hero. He’s a legend."
Robert Gaynor will be at Fenway Park Tuesday night cheering on pitcher Chris Sale during Game 1 of the World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers. But if a different left-handed pitcher, retired Dodger Sandy Koufax, was on the mound, Gaynor said his allegiance would surely be tested.
“I’m a definite Red Sox fan,” said Gaynor, 78, a Newton native. “But if Koufax was pitching today, I’d be rooting for Koufax. That’s the only condition [under which] I would not be a Red Sox fan.”
Gaynor, a retired attorney who began making bronze sculptures about 10 years ago, holds Koufax in such high regard that he created a bronze 7-foot-3-inch tall, 1,500-pound sculpture of Koufax that now stands in his yard. It took him two years to complete.
“I get up in the morning, I have a cup of coffee, and I look at this guy,” Gaynor said. “He’s my hero. He’s a legend.”
Gaynor said he admires the now 82-year-old Koufax for his former prowess on the mound — Koufax is on a short list of players who have achieved the Triple Crown of pitching, which means he has led or tied his league in wins, strikeouts, and earned run average (ERA).
He also admires Koufax for his strong character. Koufax refused to pitch during Game 1 of the 1965 World Series against the Minnesota Twins because the game fell on Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement. Koufax, like Gaynor, is Jewish. Gaynor said Koufax’s decision hit home: When Gaynor played football in high school, he once asked the athletic director if a game that fell on Yom Kippur could be rescheduled. The director said no, and Gaynor said he played in the game anyway because he didn’t want to let his teammates down.
“He stood up for his principles,” Gaynor said about Koufax. “I always regretted the fact that I didn’t stand up for my principles.”
A horse sculpture by Bob Gaynor of Newton.
Gaynor said he hasn’t gotten any flack for the larger-than-life Dodgers player gracing his yard in the middle of Red Sox nation.
“It’s all been positive,” he said. “Just the other day, somebody who teaches elementary school in Newton said, ‘Can I take a picture with him?'”
Gaynor said he offered to give the sculpture to Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, but it hasn’t been determined if the stadium will take it.
He spends several days a week working on his sculptures at Skylight Studios in Woburn. The bronze sculpture is one of the latest in a series that includes an 8-by-11-foot tall and 2,000-pound horse, smaller horses, dogs, and busts of Gaynor’s two sons. He’s currently working on a bust of himself.
“I do it for fun,” Gaynor said. “It’s kind of a relaxing thing. It’s like therapy.”
When asked if he has plans to make a sculpture of a Red Sox player, Gaynor said he’s “sort of mulling it over.”
“I like Big Papi,” he said. “He made me happy at a lot of games.”
