Seems like a useful pitch to have on hand.
Mark Waldron is pitching poorly for San Diego.
He’s the only one currently. Oops, he’s with the Nats now.
It is a fairly tough pitch to control and it seems like most catchers struggle with it.
Matt Waldron. And, yeah, a 7.15 ERA across three teams this season, after a 7.71 ERA last season. I suspect he won’t be a major league pitcher for much longer at this rate.
As noted, it’s a very difficult pitch to master and control (and takes a long time to learn), and in recent decades, the few pitchers who have thrown it have typically resorted to learning it out of desperation, due to lack of success throwing traditional pitches.
Because there are so few current or former practitioners of the pitch available to teach it to a student, I suspect that it’ll continue to fade away.
The last two knuckleballers of any longevity were
- Tim Wakefield 627 games, retired in 2011
- R. A. Dickey 400 games, retired in 2017
And Phil Niekro was the best
And Wakefield tragically died from cancer in 2023. Of the previous generation of successful practitioners of the pitch, Phil Niekro, Joe Niekro, and Wilbur Wood are all also dead, and Charlie Hough is now 78 years old (and apparently retired from coaching in 2010). There are few skilled knuckleballers still around to pass on the knowledge.
Too late to edit: i should have included Tom Candiotti on the above list. He’s still alive (age 69), and is an announcer for the Diamondbacks.
Not the same thing exactly but Jose Soriano of the Blue Jays throws a knuckle curve.
Really not the same, but MooseMike Mussina had a great one.
If anyone ever does master the knuckleball again, the other big advantage is that it is easy on the arm. 200+ innings would be easy in a season.
but from what I understand, it’s hard to catch, so maybe more wild pitches/passed balls
No maybe about it.
Literally already mentioned that. I mean, it was the 1st reply.
As Bob Uecker, who caught for Phil Niekro, famously said, “The way to catch a knuckleball is to wait until it stops rolling and pick it up.”
I seem to recall Tim Wakefield had his own catcher, Doug Mirabelli, and he used a larger glove (I think designed for softball). Then the Red Sox traded Mirabelli, at which point Wakefield started throwing lots of wild pitches because the catchers couldn’t handle him. The Sox quickly traded to get Mirabelli back and he supposedly arrived at the park just minutes before Wakefield was scheduled to pitch.
I had a friend who was a big baseball fan. When his daughter was born, I told him to teach her the knuckleball. It seems to me a plausible way for a female to break the gender barrier in professional baseball.
(Instead she became a triathlete. Oh well…I tried)
He put on his gear in the car from the airport to Fenway, and was rushed out onto the field to catch the first inning. During the chaos he left his cup in the car and caught the first inning without one, which may be the craziest part of the whole day.
Thinking back to my rec league days:
If he left his cup in the car, what was he drinking beer out of?
Perhaps slightly previous to the previous generation was Hoyt Wilhelm. He was nearly 50 when he pitched his last game in 1972.
“Before Wilhelm, the knuckleball was primarily mixed in to older pitchers’ repertoires at the end of their careers to offset their slowing fastballs and to reduce stress on their arms, thereby extending their careers. Wilhelm broke with tradition when he began throwing the pitch as a teenager and threw it nearly every pitch.[4] The New York Times linked his knuckleball with that of modern pitcher R. A. Dickey, as Wilhelm taught pitcher Charlie Hough the knuckleball in 1971, and Hough taught it to Dickey while coaching with the Texas Rangers.[51]” - Hoyt Wilhelm - Wikipedia
As I understand it, Wilhelm also taught the pitch to Wilbur Wood.
Jim Bouton said it’s “like having a catch with your sister.”