There have been a handful of pitchers that could throw the elusive “Knuckle Ball” and even fewer that could throw it with dominance. Phil Niekro enhanced his career with the pitch, while also influencing many future Knuckle Ball Pitchers.

Phil Niekro was immaculate when he was on the mound, fooling batters with a pitch that danced all around the strike zone with little to no consistency. He was a five-time All-Star with the Atlanta Braves and New York Yankees posting phenomenal 24 year career with a career ERA of 3.35 and 5,404 innings pitched.

While his pitching arsenal was that of a typical pitcher which included a fastball, curveball, and slip pitches, the knuckleball is what really made Niekro dominant. The simplicity of the knuckleball is most likely what kept him in the game for as long as he did. He was given the nickname “Knucksie” for this strange pitch that was later adopted by other pitchers, even saving the careers of some.

In a game that has evolved overtime, pitchers have become stronger and are throwing harder than ever with pitches touching the occasional 100 MPH mark. However, the knuckleball is something entirely different and Niekro lived off it throwing around 70 MPH with movement that absolutely fooled hitters. The trick of the pitch is no movement prior to release of the baseball, in which most knuckleball pitchers throw it off their finger tips.

There is something truly remarkable and special with the pitch that has helped a handful of pitchers fool even the best hitters. In the case of the Knuckleball, it disrupts the batters timing and focus as it changes direction last second.

For some, the knuckleball can be a last resort for pitchers that are trying to hold onto their careers. The dominance of the pitch was further perpetuated by two notorious pitchers of the late 90’s and 2000’s, Tim Wakefield and R.A. Dickey.

Wakefield had pitched most of his 19 year career with the Boston Red Sox and became a constant for the team when he joined them in 1995. He finished with 200 career wins and was third all time for the Red Sox in wins, trailing only Cy Young and Roger Clemens. He helped the Red Sox capture the 2004 and 2007 World Series on a pitch that is impossible to describe by people that don’t know much about it. That pitch had made Wakefield a staple in the Red Sox franchise and a legend in the hearts of Red Sox fans that watched hitters get baffled by the knuckleball he threw.

R.A Dickey had a interesting story with how he came to learn the pitch as he was a up and coming lights out pitcher when he signed out of college. There was a Olympic team photo that displayed the pitchers for team USA in the 1996 Olympics and Dickey was in the photo with a slight bend in his elbow in the photo. It led raising alarms for teams as they couldn’t trust his pitching capability and eventually led him to having surgery on his elbow. In an effort to keep playing the game and chasing his dreams, Dickey learned the knuckleball and it led him to a long 15 year career in the big leagues. It also led to his best season of his career in 2012 where he had a 20-6 record with an ERA of 2.73 which earned him the N.L Cy Young award, the first by a knuckleball pitcher.

These three fantastic pitchers met and hung out during a documentary called “Knuckleball!” that went through the history of the pitch and it’s oddity. It showed that all of them feed off each other as Niekro helped Wakefield and Dickey improve on the pitch and made it feel like a special club that could throw the pitch professionally. Currently, there are no pitchers in the Major Leagues that throw the iconic pitch, Steven Wright being the last to do it in 2019 for the Boston Red Sox. There is no doubt that the pitch can lead to success for pitchers and help them establish + prolong their careers. Phil Niekro will no doubt be missed and baseball has lost another legend that threw one of the funkiest pitches in baseball.