John Miller, player/coach of the Brussels Kangaroos and a reporter for a major American newspaper, is back chronicling his team’s 2009 season in his weekly column that will appear every Monday on mister-baseball.com.
Tim Wakefield’s 7-3 start reminds the baseball brain that the knuckleball is a true marvel of the athletic world. Here, friends, is a single skill that, performed perfectly, wins ballgames and earns millions.
Every baseball player from Cuba to Japan knows it. I’m sure there are fat first basemen in Havana and Tokyo showing off their floaters while playing catch in the outfield.
Every team has that guy in a slump dreaming he’s the next Wakefield, who, by the way, was a first baseman until he went into a slump and found his calling.
In college, our third baseman found every excuse to show off his dancer. He almost fainted, though, when our 70-year-old coach called his bluff and put him in the bullpen. I don’t think he ever made it to the mound.
Yet for all its promise, the pitch is almost impossible to throw right. The ball needs to come off the fingers with a flawless combination of touch and force.
In 15 years of European baseball, I have yet to see an ace European knuckleball pitcher. A few years ago, the Wanze Cardinals in our league had a side-burned American named Earl or Jerry. He spit tobacco out his ears and told stories about playing in “Double-A”. (Nowadays, those claims can be verified on www.baseball-reference.com. Beware the lying fool.)
On a balmy Tuesday night, Eddy/Wayne/JR knuckleballed us to death.
The magic of the knuckleball is that it creates its own reality. One of my favorite moments of postseason baseball was an extra-inning playoff game between the Yankees and Red Sox. Jason Varitek rarely catches Wakefield. That’s the job of a so-called specialty catcher. But because the Sox needed him for his bat, here was Varitek trying to catch Wakefield. One ball skipped off his glove and to the backstop. Then another. And another. Varitek looked like a Little Leaguer. Magic.
The secret, I think, is being able to throw the knuckleball hard, so that it collides with force against a wall of air between mound and plate, making it dance. I suspect that most pitchers aren’t able to keep the ball spin-less while throwing it that hard.
So allow me to submit a simple idea. The knuckleball could be a European’s ticket to the bigs. Why not? It doesn’t require thousands of at-bats against good competition or years and years of summer baseball, or fancy training from a pitching coach.
All you need to become Tim Wakefield is an 80-mph fastball and a little magic.
Europe has plenty of both.
Are there dominant knuckleballers in your Euro-league? I’m curious, so please tell to oldworldpastime@gmail.com