The Knuckleball Club by Johnson Richard A.;

Author:Johnson, Richard A.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Ted Lyons, Dutch Leonard, Jim Bouton, Charlie Hough, Tim Wakefield, Tom Candiotti, and R. A. Dickey had all made this calculated professional and deeply personal decision. It was different from how Hoyt Wilhelm and Phil Niekro became knuckleball pitchers.

The journey often sounds simple and elegant, but it almost never is. Still, Wood had an advantage over most pitchers who commit to the butterfly pitch: Wilhelm was his teammate, and there is no record of “Old Sarge” ever having refused to help a fellow knuckleballer who sought assistance, especially one who had the “knack.”

Wood was traded to Chicago for flame-throwing Juan Pizzaro on October 12, 1966. He met Wilhelm on the second day of spring training in Sarasota in 1967.

“The first thing Wilhelm did after I approached him for help was ask how long I had been monkeying with the knuckler,” said Wood.

When I told him I had been using it off and on since junior high school in Belmont, Massachusetts, he was satisfied. That was lesson one. Don’t try to throw the knuckleball as an adult unless you threw it as a kid.

He gave me the best advice. The thing he told me was that you have to go with it 100 percent of the time. To win or lose a ballgame, you have to use the knuckleball since it’s your biggest pitch.

It was a make or break year for me. I had to find out more about the pitch. Hoyt, you might say, showed me the ins and outs. I had been able to throw good knucklers before, but when I did, I could never tell why. Hoyt showed me why.[7]

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