This article is about the baseball pitch. For the 2012 documentary film, see
Knuckleball!.
Tim Wakefield in his throwing motion, showing his grip of the knuckleball
A
knuckleball or
knuckler is a
baseball pitch thrown so as to minimize the spin of the ball in flight, causing an erratic, unpredictable motion. The air flow over a seam of the ball causes the ball to transition from
laminar to
turbulent flow. This transition adds a deflecting force on the side of the baseball. This makes the pitch difficult for
batters to hit, but also difficult for
pitchers to control and
catchers to catch; umpires are challenged as well, since following the path of the ball makes it difficult to call
balls and
strikes.
[1]
Origins[edit]
Eddie Cicotte, who is sometimes credited with inventing the knuckleball
Grip and motion[edit]
As used by Cicotte, the knuckleball was originally thrown by holding the ball with the
knuckles, hence the name of the pitch.
Ed Summers, a Pittsburgh teammate of Cicotte who adopted the pitch and helped develop it, modified this by holding the ball with his fingertips and using the
thumb for balance. This grip can also include digging the
fingernails into the surface of the ball. The fingertip grip is more commonly used today by knuckleball pitchers, like retired Boston Red Sox pitcher
Tim Wakefield, who had a knuckleball with a lot of movement. There are other prominent knuckleball pitchers like Hall of Famer
Phil Niekro, who had a very effective knuckler and knuckle curve, and current
Toronto Blue Jays pitcher
R.A. Dickey. However, young pitchers with smaller hands tend to throw the knuckleball with their knuckles. Sometimes young players will throw the knuckleball with their knuckles flat against the ball, giving it less spin but also making it difficult to throw any significant distance.
Regardless of how the ball is gripped, the purpose of the knuckleball is to have the least amount of rotational spin as possible. Created by the act of throwing a ball, the ball's
trajectory is significantly affected by variations in airflow caused by differences between the smooth surface of the ball and the stitching of its seams. The asymmetric
drag that results tends to deflect the trajectory toward the side with the stitches.
Over the distance from the
pitcher's mound to
home plate, the effect of these forces is that the knuckleball can "flutter", "dance", "jiggle", or curve in two different directions during its flight. A pitch thrown completely without spin is less desirable, however, than one with only a very slight spin (so that the ball completes between one-quarter and one-half a rotation on its way from the pitcher to the batter). This will cause the position of the stitches to change as the ball travels, which changes the drag that gives the ball its motion, thus making its flight even more erratic. Even a ball thrown without rotation will "flutter", due to the "apparent wind" it feels as its trajectory changes throughout its flight path.
[5]
Hitting a knuckleball is different enough from other aspects of baseball that players specifically prepare for the pitch during batting practice before games they expect it in.
[6]According to physicist
Robert Adair, due to the physiological limitation of human
reaction time, a
breaking knuckleball may be impossible to hit except by luck.
[2] If a knuckleball does not change direction in mid-flight, however, then it is easy to hit due to its lack of speed. (A common phrase for hitting a knuckleball is "if it's low, let it go; if it's high, let it fly"; meaning that a batter should attempt to hit a knuckleball only if it crosses the plate high in the strike zone.) Since it typically only travels 60 to 70 miles per hour (97 to 113 km/h),
[7] far slower than the average major league fastball 85 to 95 miles per hour (137 to 153 km/h), it can be hit very hard if there is no movement. One 2007 study offered evidence for this conclusion.
[8] To reduce the chances of having the knuckleball get hit for a
home run, some pitchers will impart a slight
topspin so that if no force causes the ball to dance, it will move downward in flight. Another drawback is that runners on base can usually advance more easily than if a conventional pitcher is on the mound. This is due to both the knuckleball's low average speed and its erratic movement, which force the catcher to keep focusing on the ball even after the runners start stealing their next bases. A few knuckleball pitchers, such as
Hoyt Wilhelm and
Tim Wakefield, had catchers specifically assigned to them to catch their knuckleballs.
A paper presented at the 2012 Conference of the International Sports Engineering Association argues, based on
PITCHf/x data, that knuckleballs do not make large and abrupt changes in their trajectories on the way to home plate—or at least, no more abrupt than a normal pitch. It speculates that the appearance of abrupt shifting may be due to the
unpredictability of the changes in direction.
[9]
The knuckleball is also employed by the Indian
cricket fast bowler
Zaheer Khan as his slower delivery. The physics of the operation are largely the same. However, the seam on a cricket ball is equatorial, and thus the extent of erratic movement is reduced due to the symmetry (at least in the conventional release position where the planes of the ball's trajectory and the seam are nearly co-planar). In addition, the lack of backspin does shorten the length of the delivery, and also tends to make the ball skid off the pitch—faster than it would come off a normal delivery.
[10]
Naming and relationship to other pitches[edit]
Since it developed during a period when the
spitball was legal and commonly used, and was similarly surprising in its motion, the knuckleball was sometimes called the "dry spitter". Cicotte was widely reported to throw both the knuckleball and a variant on the spitball known as a "shine ball" (because he would "shine" one side of a dirty ball by rubbing it on his uniform). However, Cicotte called the shine ball "a pure freak of the imagination", claiming that he did this to disconcert hitters but that the pitch was still a knuckleball.
Other names for the knuckleball have generally alluded to its motion and slower speed. These include the flutterball, the floater, the dancer, the butterfly ball, the ghostball, and the bug.
The knuckle curve has a somewhat similar name because of the grip used to throw it (also with the knuckles or fingernails), but it is generally thrown harder and with spin. The resulting motion of the pitch more closely resembles a
curveball, which explains the combination name.
Toad Ramsey, a pitcher from 1885 to 1890, is credited in some later sources with being the first knuckleballer, apparently based primarily on accounts of how he gripped the ball; however, based on more contemporary descriptions of his pitch as an "immense drop ball", it may be that his pitch was a form of knuckle curve. Two later pitchers,
Jesse Haines and
Freddie Fitzsimmons, were sometimes characterized as knuckleball pitchers even by their contemporaries, but in their cases this again refers to a harder-thrown, curving pitch that would probably not be called a knuckleball today. Historically, the term "knuckle curve" had a usage that was different from what it has in the game today. Many current pitchers throw a curveball using a grip with the index finger touching the ball with the knuckle or the fingertip (also called a spike curve). This modern pitch type is unrelated to the knuckleball.
As of 2004, only about 70 Major League Baseball pitchers have regularly used the knuckleball during their careers, and its use has become more rare over time. This can be attributed to a variety of factors. The first is
selection bias in
scouting. Because the speed of any prospect's pitch is one of the quickest and easiest metrics in judging the skill of the prospect, the knuckleball, which is thrown slower than any other pitch, gets overlooked.
Tim Wakefield argues that "The problem is that [baseball] is so radar gun-oriented." Former knuckleballer and pitching coach
Charlie Hough says that the increased rarity of the knuckleball is due to scouts increasingly looking only for the best arm.
[11] This effect is increasing over time as the modern game continues to emphasize power in pitching and average pitch speed increases.
[12]
Another factor contributing to the rarity of the knuckleball is the difficulty of throwing the pitch.
R.A. Dickey estimates that it takes at least a year to grasp the fundamentals of the knuckleball. The knuckleball is radically different than any other pitch in a pitcher's arsenal, and less predictable, thus difficult to control. It is for this reason that the knuckleball is widely regarded as unreliable, and knuckleball pitchers are prone to extended slumps, such as when Tim Wakefield was released from the Pirates in a mid-career slump during spring training, in 1995.
[11] Another reason for the difficulty of the knuckleball is due to the
network effect. Because there are so few knuckleball pitchers, the resources for learning and improving the knuckleball are few compared to more common pitches. Pitching coaches often struggle with knuckleball pitchers due to a lack of experience with the pitch. "I think the hardest thing for me is just the alone-ness that you feel sometimes because nobody else really does it," said Wakefield.
[11]
Coaches have also been seen as a barrier to succeeding with the knuckleball.
Jim Bouton said, "coaches don't respect it. You can pitch seven good innings with a knuckleball, and as soon as you walk a guy they go, 'See, there's that damn knuckleball.'" R.A. Dickey argues that, "for most managers, it takes a special manager to be able to really trust it -- the bad and the good of it". Coaches are quick to banish the pitch after one bad outing. This was common due to the amount of practice one must put into the pitch. And traditionally, if you look at Tim Wakefield, Joe and Phil Niekro, Tom Candiotti, Wilbur Wood, Hoyt Wilhelm and all the guys that threw it, through their success they had guys who really believed in what it could do long-term and committed to giving them the ball every fifth day to do it."
[11]
In 1991, Hall of Fame catcher Rick Ferrell was quoted as saying, "I think the knuckleball is fading out." Ferrell knows knuckleballs; he had the task of being the Washington Senators' catcher in 1944 and '45, when the Senators had four knuckleball pitchers in their starting rotation. Furthermore, little things, like a dearth of knuckleball teachers and the dramatic increase in the running game (base stealing is often easier against knuckleball pitchers), may be contributing to its demise. Says Bob Humphrey, a former major-league knuckleball pitcher: "you just don't have time to mess with it." A fast-track scheme is developing, eliminating the knuckleballer pitcher's chief ally: time. Tom Candiotti said: "to get signed, you have to be impressive on the radar guns." The knuckleball takes time to master and is not an attractive pitch on the radar guns, both of which may be contributing to its demise.
[13][14]
Perhaps as a result, knuckleball pitchers often view themselves as members of an exclusive club, with its own
uniform number (49, first worn by Wilhelm) and leader (Phil Niekro, whom
The New Yorker in 2004 called "the undisputed Grand Poobah" of the group after Wilhelm's death).
[2] Because they cannot discuss pitching with non knuckleball-using teammates, they often share tips and insights even if on competing teams, and believe that they have a responsibility to help younger players develop the pitch.
[15] When, in 2012, R. A. Dickey became the first
Cy Young Award-winning knuckleball pitcher, he called the award "a victory for … the knuckleball fraternity", and of the dozens of phone calls he received after the announcement, Niekro's was the only one he answered.
[16]
When originally developed, the knuckleball was used by a number of pitchers as simply one pitch in their repertoire, usually as part of changing speeds from their
fastball. It is almost never used in a mixed repertoire today, however, and some believe that to throw the knuckleball effectively with some semblance of control over the pitch, one must throw it more or less exclusively.
[17] At the same time, pitchers rarely focus on the knuckleball if they have reasonable skill with more standard pitches. Unlike conventional pitches, which perform fast results without much exertion, a knuckleball pitcher must train his body and muscle memory to be able to execute a 65 mph pitch with under one rotation.
[18]
Use in pitching[edit]
The knuckleball does provide some advantages to its practitioners. It does not need to be thrown hard (in fact, throwing too hard may diminish its effectiveness), and is therefore less taxing on the arm. This means knuckleball pitchers can throw more
innings than other pitchers, and, requiring less time to recover after pitching, can pitch more frequently. The lower physical strain also fosters longer careers. Some knuckleballers have continued to pitch professionally well into their forties; examples include
Tim Wakefield,
Hoyt Wilhelm,
Charlie Hough,
Tom Candiotti, and the
Niekro brothers.
[2] Pitchers like Bouton have found success as knuckleballers after their ability to throw hard declined.
Wilhelm,
Phil Niekro, and
Jesse Haines, three pitchers who primarily relied on the knuckleball, have been inducted into the
Baseball Hall of Fame. Additionally,
Ted Lyons, another member of the Hall of Fame, relied heavily on the knuckleball after injuring his arm in 1931.
[19] Niekro was given the nickname "Knucksie" during his career. Other prominent knuckleball pitchers have included
Joe Niekro (Phil's brother),
Charlie Hough,
Dave Jolly,
Ben Flowers,
Wilbur Wood,
Barney Schultz,
Tom Candiotti,
Bob Purkey,
Steve Sparks,
Eddie Rommel,
Tim Wakefield, and Dickey. During the 1945 season, with talent depleted by call-ups to fight in
World War II, the
Washington Senators had a pitching rotation which included four knuckleball pitchers (
Dutch Leonard,
Johnny Niggeling,
Mickey "Itsy Bitsy" Haefner and
Roger Wolff) who combined for 60 complete
gamesand 60 wins, carrying the Senators to second place.
Dickey of the
Toronto Blue Jays[20] is one of only a few knuckleballers in the big leagues, joined by
Steven Wright of the
Boston Red Sox. Dickey routinely throws an unusually fast knuckleball at 80 mph (130 km/h). Minor leaguers
Charlie Zink of the
Lancaster Barnstormers, Joseph Zeller of the
Peoria Chiefs, and
Charlie Haeger of the
Albuquerque Isotopes also throw the knuckleball. Dickey himself has taken an active involvement in helping younger knuckleballers coming through, and in 2012 he started providing personal coaching lessons to 18-year-old knuckleball pitcher Stephen Orso.
[21] [22] In November 2008, it was announced that 16-year-old knuckleballer
Eri Yoshida was drafted as the first woman ever to play in Japanese professional baseball for the
Kobe 9 Cruise of the
Kansai Independent Baseball League. On March 2, 2010, she trained with Tim Wakefield at the
Boston Red Sox minor-league training facility.
[23] And on April 8, 2010, she signed with the
Chico Outlaws, debuting on May 29, 2010.
[24] Former
Detroit Tigers reliever
Eddie Bonine also throws a knuckleball, though he does so infrequently as compared to pitchers who use it as a primary pitch.
Lance Niekro, son of
Joe Niekro, attempted to convert from a position player to a knuckleball pitcher. He started the 2009 season with the
Gulf Coast League Braves, but is currently retired and coaching college baseball at
Florida Southern.
Catching[edit]
| “ | The way to catch a knuckleball is to wait until it stops rolling and pick it up. | ” |
|
|
As with hitters, the unpredictable motion of the knuckleball makes it one of the most difficult pitches for catchers to handle, and they tend to be charged with a significantly higher number of
passed balls. Former catcher
Bob Uecker, who caught for Phil Niekro said, "The way to catch a knuckleball is to wait until it stops rolling and pick it up."
[1]Bouton said, "Catchers hate it. Nobody likes to warm up with you." According to Adair, the 150 ms minimum human reaction time may be too slow to adjust to a knuckleball's changing direction.
[2]
A team will sometimes employ a catcher solely for games started by a knuckleballer.
[25] The "knuckleball catcher" is equipped with an oversized knuckleball catcher's mitt,
[26]similar to a
first baseman's glove;
Doug Mirabelli, formerly of the
Red Sox, used a
softball catcher's mitt. The
Boston Red Sox did this fairly systematically in their
2004 world championship season, with Mirabelli regularly catching in place of
Jason Varitek when
Tim Wakefield was pitching. This use of a "specialist" catcher continued into the 2008 season following the signing of
Kevin Cash, and 2009 saw
George Kottaras fulfill this role. On August 26, the first time
Victor Martinez caught Wakefield, he used a
first baseman's glove, instead of a regular catcher's mitt.
[27] Teams often trade knuckleball pitchers and their catchers in the same transaction. For example,
Josh Thole and
Mike Nickeas went with Dickey when the pitcher was traded to the
Toronto Blue Jays in late 2012, and the team later signed
Henry Blanco, who also caught for Dickey.
[25]
