From my seat somewhere between the warning track and a graduate seminar, I watched Blake Snell replicate Sandy Koufax the way a photocopier replicates a Renaissance painting: with a hum, a little heat, and a shocking lack of mercy for paper.

Sixty Octobers is enough time for a city to change freeways, hairstyles, and the definition of a good hot dog, but it is not enough to dull the sting of a left-hander who treats the strike zone like a savings account he alone can withdraw from.

In Koufax’s day, fans clutched transistor radios and faith; now there is an algorithm to recommend which pitch you should be worried about. Back then an organist scored the tension; tonight the pitch clock ticks like a landlord who knows where you live.

Snell stalks off the mound like a librarian with a decibel meter. Hitters return to the dugout carrying existential pamphlets. Somewhere, an old coaching tree rustles and drops one more leaf labeled Thou Shalt Not Swing 0-2.

Outside, the faithful have turned the concourse into a shrine. One man waves a Sandy Koufax commemorative bobblehead as if Vatican-certified, nodding in perfect rhythm with Snell’s slider. A child asks who Koufax was; a parent answers, mercifully, a bedtime story with better command.

An umpire confiscates a suspicious rosin stash that looks suspiciously like artisanal bath salts, only to discover it is a pro-grade rosin bag refill with a label that reads For Mythical Lefties And Taxed Franchises Alike. The rosin test is inconclusive, but the batters test positive for regret.

The pregame meeting goes full Monty Python: one coach insists Snell’s velocity must be measured in coconuts per swallow; another demonstrates a curveball by drawing a circle in the dirt and demanding it file for curvature taxes.

History peeks over the bullpen wall. Koufax looms, a parable about conviction and slow heartbeat, the rare pitcher who defeated October without having to shout about it. Snell, hearing the tale, nods like a man reading a familiar plot twist and choosing the director’s cut anyway.

On my tablet, the charts bloom like an invasive species. Whiff rates climb, expected stats sigh, and the heat map looks like a medieval warning: here be dragons, specifically the part of the plate where hope goes to molt.

The crowd arrives in the third inning, as is tradition, clutching optimism like valet tickets they swear they will not lose. By the seventh, they are bargaining with the baseball gods and the parking gods, in that order.

Front offices whisper to their cap sheets as if to bonsai trees: grow small, grow wise, grow rings on a budget. Snell obliges, harvesting zeroes like coupons while the luxury tax pretends it is a moral philosophy and not a celebrity diet.

By the ninth, the night has settled into that Koufaxian hush, and the broadcast booth speaks in italics. If this is replication, it is the kind that improves the original by threatening the present with competence. Sixty Octobers later, the silhouette fits, the legend breathes, and the only thing not replicating is anyone else’s chance to hit, which is a shame for them and a hilarious callback for my toner budget, because once again October is out of ink and Snell has jammed the printer.