The success enjoyed this season by Mets knuckleball pitcher R.A. Dickey has many fans wondering why more struggling big league hurlers don’t work on developing the unpredictable pitch. The knuckler isn’t easy to throw, and Dickey will be the first to tell you it’s a challenge to command every five days.
Met catchers will tell you it’s a bigger struggle to catch it that often. Brewers broadcaster and former catcher Bob Uecker put it best many years ago: “The best way to catch a knuckleball is to wait until it stops rolling and walk back and pick it up.”
Ever hear of Rick Ferrell? Some fans who see his plaque on the wall in Cooperstown may wonder how he got there. Ferrell never played on a championship club. He batted .281 over 18 seasons with only 28 home runs; his brother Wes Ferrell, a pitcher who won 193 games in the big leagues, hit 38 home runs by comparison. What made Rick so great?
He once had to catch four — count ’em — four knuckleball pitchers in the same rotation.
In 1944, the last place Washington Nationals featured a rotation of Dutch Leonard, Mickey Haefner, Early Wynn, Johnny Niggeling and Roger Wolff. All but Haefner were righties, and all but Wynn threw the knuckleball. Out of 154 games, knuckleball pitchers started 104, and Ferrell was behind the plate for 99 of them.
For an encore, all four knuckleballers returned in 1945 when the Nats contended for the AL flag, and finished second behind Detroit. Wolff won 20, and he and the three others started 111 of 154, with Ferrell behind the plate for 91 of them.
He was 39 years old when the season started, and likely felt close to 70 when it ended. He could be excused for sitting out the 1946 season, which he did. He made a brief return at 41 as a player-coach with the ’47 ball club before hanging it up for good.
When Ferrell made the Hall of Fame through the Veteran’s Committee vote in 1984, old timers knew that Rick’s proficiency in catching the fluttering baseball was paramount in the consideration he received. It’s unusual for a staff to have more than a single master of the knuckler; four puts a staff into the science-fiction category.
When Hoyt Wilhelm was with the Orioles, manager Paul Richards commissioned Wilson Sporting Goods to create an oversized catcher’s mitt for Gus Triandos to corral the pitch and cut down on passed balls. Ferrell had no such gear at his disposal. His mitt didn’t even have a hinge.
Hall of Famer Phil Niekro told me a few years back that he’d like the opportunity to take two or three struggling pitchers from every team and create a Knuckleball Academy. He’s confident that he could turn more than half of them into big league practitioners of the pitch. If Dickey’s success continues, he may get the chance.
Phil Wood is a contributor to Nats Xtra on MASN. Contact him at [email protected].
