The knuckleball extends careers but gets little respect
By SAM MELLINGER
The Kansas City Star
PEORIA, Ariz. | The newest member of a dying species tells you to pull up a chair.
Describing the journey from conventional pitcher to knuckleballer will take some time, and it’s a story he wants out there. R.A. Dickey is about to try to make millions of dollars by beating the best hitters in the world with a pitch that’s roughly the same speed as a high schooler’s change-up.
You think that’s funny? This is not a joke.
“It’s not some sideshow,” says Dickey, who will likely break camp in the Mariners’ bullpen. “Publicly and even professionally, people view it as a spectacle, kind of a circus pitch. But it’s a pitch that has one design and one design only: to get a big-league hitter out.”
The knuckleball put Hoyt Wilhelm and Phil Niekro in the Hall of Fame. It found Tim Wakefield as a minor-league infielder about to be cut and turned him into a 168-game winner, a two-time World Series champion and a millionaire more than 40 times over.
Still, the knuckleball remains the Jim Carrey comedy everyone laughs at and then ignores come Oscar time. Come to think of it, Carrey eventually turned to more serious movies, so maybe it’s no surprise that in the macho world of professional baseball, the knuckleball is the domain of just a few, and only then as a last resort.
Dickey is in many ways the perfect man to carry the pitch into the next decade. Going conventional, he went 16-18 with a 5.55 ERA, numbers that may have been stunted because he has no pitching ligament in his right elbow — doctors can’t explain it.
He gave up 14 hits and six walks in his debut as a professional knuckleballer, and stuck with it three years. He was the Pacific Coast League’s pitcher of the year in 2007 and now finds himself on the brink of establishing a serviceable big-league career.
Unique, persistent and patient.
The knuckleball’s fruits are reserved for a select few.
“I wouldn’t have made it out of my hometown without the knuckleball,” Niekro says. “They used to call me puff arm, told me I threw like a woman, you name it. But it’s the best way I know of getting to the big leagues and staying there.”
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Royals pitching coach Bob McClure dabbled with a knuckleball in his playing days and doesn’t understand why more guys don’t look into the pitch. He likens it to a pitcher dropping his arm angle, going sidearm to differentiate himself.
“What do they have to lose?” McClure says.
Dickey now looks like a part of the Mariners’ future at the age of 33. Historically, knucklers have their greatest success in their mid-to-late 30s and often pitch into their 40s. So Dickey might have a decade’s worth of good seasons left at a time he’d be selling insurance or coaching if he stayed traditional.
No matter. Most organizations are hesitant to push a knuckleball on a young pitcher.
“Major-league teams have a lot of money invested in hard-throwing prospects,” says Charlie Hough, a pitching coach in the Dodgers’ system who pitched 25 seasons primarily with a knuckleball. “I’ve got so many prospects on my team, it’s difficult to tell the bosses, ‘Hey, I want to use one-fifth of it or whatever on a kid trying to throw a knuckleball.’
“They kind of look at you like, ‘Hey, you’re crazy,’ unless you have success right away.”
Even as it’s ignored during games, the knuckleball has a magical place in baseball’s culture. Royals manager Trey Hillman and coach John Mizerock sometimes throw knucklers back and forth to warm up for batting practice.
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To reach Sam Mellinger, national baseball reporter for The Star, call 816-234-4365 or send e-mail to smellinger@kcstar.com
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