The Knuckleballers: The Pitch Nobody Can Steer, and the Men Who Rode It Into Their Late 40s
It barely tops 70 mph, yet it makes great hitters flail and catchers chase it to the backstop. From Hall of Famers Hoyt Wilhelm and Phil Niekro to Tim Wakefield and Cy Young winner R.A. Dickey, a look at baseball's strangest craft.
In an era when big league pitchers routinely throw 97 miles an hour, one pitch goes the other way. It often arrives somewhere around 70 mph, and it still makes elite hitters look foolish, sends catchers scrambling to the backstop, and leaves the man who threw it unsure where it is going. That is the knuckleball.
Why it dances
Almost every pitch depends on spin. The backspin on a fastball helps it resist gravity, and the topspin on a curveball pulls it down. The knuckleball works the opposite way. The pitcher grips the ball with his fingertips or nails and pushes it out of his hand with as little rotation as possible. A good one may not complete a single turn on its way to the plate.
Without spin, air flows unevenly over the seams, and the ball can dart, flutter or drop in the last few feet of its flight. There is no fixed pattern to the movement, so the hitter cannot predict it and the pitcher cannot fully control it.
That is why catchers for knuckleballers often wear an oversized mitt. One broadcaster joked that the best way to catch a knuckleball is to wait until it stops rolling and then pick it up.
Hoyt Wilhelm: the first reliever in Cooperstown
Wilhelm did not reach the majors until he was 29, then pitched until he was 49. He appeared in more than 1,000 games, most of them out of the bullpen, and finished with a career ERA of 2.52. In 1958 he threw a no-hitter against the Yankees as a starter. In 1985 he became the first pitcher elected to the Hall of Fame primarily as a reliever.
Phil Niekro: 318 wins for Knucksie
If the knuckleball has a face, it might be Phil Niekro's. Pitching mostly for the Braves, he won 318 games, struck out more than 3,300 batters and kept going until he was 48. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1997.
His younger brother Joe threw a knuckleball too and won 221 games. Together the Niekros won 539, the most by any pair of brothers in major league history.
Tim Wakefield: from failed infielder to Red Sox legend
Wakefield was drafted as an infielder. When it became clear he was not going to hit enough, he turned to the knuckleball in the minors. He went on to pitch 17 seasons for the Red Sox and won 186 of his 200 career games in Boston, and he was part of the World Series champions in 2004 and 2007.
He started, relieved and soaked up long innings whenever he was asked, and Boston fans came to see him as one of the most selfless players the club ever had. He received the Roberto Clemente Award in 2010. When he died in 2023 at 57, the whole organization mourned him.
R.A. Dickey: the only knuckleball Cy Young
Dickey began as a conventional hard thrower. During a physical after he was drafted, doctors discovered that his pitching elbow had no ulnar collateral ligament at all, and the bonus he had been offered shrank dramatically. After years of struggling, he committed fully to the knuckleball in his 30s.
In 2012, at 37, he went 20-8 with a 2.73 ERA and 230 strikeouts for the Mets and won the National League Cy Young Award, the first knuckleball pitcher ever to do it. His knuckler was unusually firm, sometimes approaching 80 mph, which made it even harder to square up.
Why there are so few left
Knuckleballers have one huge advantage. The pitch puts very little strain on the arm, so they can pitch deep into their 40s and bounce back quickly between outings. The drawbacks are just as real. When a knuckleball fails to move, it becomes a slow, straight pitch that hitters can drive. It is also hard to teach, and very few coaches know how.
In a game now built around velocity, spin rate and data, teams have grown reluctant to spend years developing a knuckleballer. After Dickey retired in 2017, the majors went several seasons with almost no full-time knuckleball pitchers, and only recently have a few begun to appear again.
That scarcity is part of the charm. Every knuckleball that wobbles its way to the plate is a small piece of baseball magic, and nobody in the ballpark, the pitcher included, knows exactly how the trick will end.
For Baseball Dream players
Baseball Dream has the knuckleball too. You can work on it in training and give one of your pitchers a weapon hitters never quite figure out. Keep the knuckleballers' lesson in mind as well: velocity is not everything, and control, movement and stamina matter just as much. Let a durable arm eat innings as a starter, and turn a pitcher who can handle any situation into what Wakefield was for Boston, the most trusted man in your bullpen.