"I figured if there's any way I'm going to win my 300th game by striking the guy out, I was going to do it with the pitch that won the first game for me," Niekro said. [3][4] He was of Polish descent. He returned to Louisville in 1962 and had a 96 record. Phil Niekro, the Hall of Fame pitcher who confounded batters with his fluttering knuckleballs . Baseball Hall of Famer Phil Niekro holds a knuckleball at the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland in 2017. "I was a one-pitch pitcher.". Phil, trying for a fifth time to win No. "It comes flying in there dipping and hopping like crazy, and you just can't hit it.". Yet the knuckler was all Niekro had, all he believed in. Twenty years after he broke into the majors, 45-year-old starter Phil Niekro deals a knuckleball against the Chicago White Sox at Yankee Stadium, Aug. 8, 1984. He would go on for two more decades living inside hitters' heads. Phil Niekro showing his grip at the Baseball Hall of Fame. in Blaine, OH Niekro, inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1997, was one of baseball's most prolific and durable pitchers, using his "butterfly" pitch to win 318 games in a career that spanned 24 seasons, including 21 with the Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves. They hold the record for most combined wins by siblings in a career with 539. He took the mound for nearly a quarter of a century using the arm-saving pitch. You do not push a knuckleball with the fingers. In 1969, his first All-Star season, he had a 2313 season with a 2.56 ERA,[1] finishing second in the National League Cy Young award balloting to Tom Seaver. If you have any question, please contact me at knuckleballnation@gmail.com, Monday Friday: 10am 9pmSaturday: 10am 4pm, Copyright OceanWP Knuckleball Nation. By continuing to use this website, you consent to the use of cookies in accordance with our Cookie Policy. Phil Niekro's playing days ended in 1987, but he would don a uniform one more time, as manager of the women's barnstorming Colorado Silver Bullets (1994-97). It was Oct. 6, 1985, the final day of the season. "They may not be intimidated by them, but they sure are thinking about them before they go into the box.". Niekro learned his knuckler as a 12-year-old from his coal miner father in Ohio. "[24] Catcher Bob Uecker was also frustrated by the pitch at times, saying, "Niekro struck out a hitter once and I never touched the ball. Nobody likes to warm up with you." Amazingly, he won 121 games over the age of 40 thanks to his knuckleball. He would teach his sons, Phil Jr. and Joe, the pitch when they were youngsters. When done correctly, the float serve is hard for opponents to predict where the ball will end up, thus rendering it hard to pass. When I think of Phil Niekro, two things come to mind. Ed Summers, an Indianapolis teammate of Cicotte who adopted the pitch and helped develop it, modified it by holding the ball with his fingertips and using the thumb for balance. By ESPN.com news services. Most of his career was spent with mostly with the Atlanta Braves. 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. As I discussed earlier, there are a few different ways to grip the knuckleball. The Braves finished 3rd, 4th, and 5th in their division. [50], This article is about the baseball pitch. in speed, and things like that." . He looks much older. In association football (soccer), the method of striking the ball so that it produces almost no spinning motion during its flight has been colloquially described as "knuckleballing" by commentators, due to the ball's motion that resembles a baseball thrown with a knuckleball pitch. [10], Coaches have also been seen as a barrier to succeeding with the knuckleball. [1] A pitcher who throws knuckleballs is known as a knuckleballer. All images are property the copyright holder and are displayed here for informational purposes only. (Brad Mangin/National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum), Using his trademark knuckleball to baffle hitters, Phil Niekro was named to five All-Star Games. [28], The knuckleball does provide some advantages to its practitioners. His skill on the mound was surpassed perhaps only by his good humor and kind nature, which won him friends throughout baseball and the world. (Voted by BBWAA on 380/473 ballots) As a mentor, leader and friend, Phil brought out the best in all of us in Cooperstown. The knuckleball is also employed by cricket fast bowlers Zaheer Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Andrew Tye as their slower delivery. [10], In 1970, he went 1218 with a 4.27 ERA in what turned out to be a down year. 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. When thrown well with little to no spin, the ball feels like it slips out of your palm. 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. Read More FILE - In this March 29, 2007, file photo, Baseball Hall of Famer Phil Niekro holds a knuckleball at the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland. Perplexed catchers and managers wary of passed balls and wild pitches were reasons often cited for Niekro's extended stay in the Braves' minor league system. He finished the 1985 season with a 1612 record, the final time he won 15 or more games in a single season. 11/19/2013 added GIFs for Tim Wakefield, Charlie Hough and Phil Niekro 1/2/2013 added RA Dickey knuckleball slomotion from FanGraphs. Become a Stathead & surf this site ad-free. Failed to subscribe, please contact admin. "Very few pitchers make a living throwing the knuckleball," says Sain, "simply because they can't make it work. I just didn't prepare myself this year. After the season, the Braves released him.[11]. As used by Cicotte, the knuckleball was originally thrown by holding the ball with the knuckles, hence the name of the pitch. And if you can throw a ball without any spin at 65-plus miles-per-hour, than you've got a great knuckleball grip.But there are overwhelming similarities between the grips of the great knuckleball pitchers; guys like Phil Niekro, Charlie Hough, Tom . Phil Niekros record on the field ranks him as one of the games finest pitchers, said Jane Forbes Clark, Chairman of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Niekro passed away on Dec. 26, 2020, at the age of 81. December 27, 2020 Nancy and I are deeply saddened by the news today of the passing of Phil Niekro. We present them here for purely educational purposes. A knuckleball or knuckler is a baseball pitch thrown to minimize the spin of the ball in flight, causing an erratic, unpredictable motion. Support provided by Market New York through I LOVE NY/ New York States Division of Tourism as a part of the Regional Economic Development Council awards. "It actually giggles at you as it goes by," said former outfielder Rick Monday. Phil's 121 career victories after the age of 40 is a major league record. We have tools and resources that can help you use sports data. April 15, 1964 Some knuckleballers have continued to pitch professionally well into their forties: Tim Wakefield, Hoyt Wilhelm, R. A. Dickey, Charlie Hough, Tom Candiotti, and the brothers Phil Niekro and Joe Niekro. In 1984, Niekro signed a two-year contract with the New York Yankees. Second stint with the Atlanta Braves (1987), New York Yankees Opening Day starting pitchers, List of Major League Baseball career wins leaders, List of Major League Baseball annual ERA leaders, List of Major League Baseball annual strikeout leaders, List of Major League Baseball annual wins leaders, List of Major League Baseball career hit batsmen leaders, List of Major League Baseball career strikeout leaders, List of Major League Baseball single-inning strikeout leaders, "20-Game Loser: Profiles of the 20-Loss Seasons", "Phil Niekro has never forgotten the Ohio Valley", "Phil Niekro Goes Home to Visit His Ailing Father", "Phil League Minor League Statistics and History", "Harris planning dual role for Phil Niekro", "Phil Niekro's illustrious career by the numbers", "Phil Niekro Signs 2-Year Yankee Pact (Published 1984)", "Road to 300: with Roger Clemens becoming the 21st pitcher to win 300 big league games, here are the stories of seven others who reached the same milestone", "Niekro Gets 300th Win a Shutout of Blue Jays", "YANKEES TRADED BAYLOR AND RELEASE PHIL NIEKRO", "Hall of Famer knuckleballer Phil Niekro dies at 81 | Sports | morningjournal.com", "SPORTS PEOPLE; Phil Niekro to Braves (Published 1987)", "Phil Niekro, who rode his knuckleball to the Hall of Fame, dies at 81", "No Spin Zone: Knuckleball master Phil Niekro to speak at Field of Dreams Banquet", "FresnoBee.com: Fresno Grizzlies: Niekro gets shot to pitch", "A Roster of MLB All-Stars Helped Raise Awareness for Prostate Cancer", "Legendary Braves pitcher Phil Niekro dies at age of 81", "Hall of Fame knuckleballer Niekro dead at 81", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Phil_Niekro&oldid=1138834006, Major League Baseball players with retired numbers, Louisville Colonels (minor league) players, American expatriate baseball players in Canada, Deaths from cancer in Georgia (U.S. state), Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, September 27,1987,for theAtlanta Braves, Career statistics and player information from, This page was last edited on 11 February 2023, at 22:10. Niekro remains the last MLB pitcher to win and lose 20 games in the same season, finishing 21-20 with the Braves in 1979. By Jim Murray. Of the thousands of pitchers who have reached the majors, fewer than a hundred mastered the knuckleball that maddeningly erratic, spin-free butterfly well enough to rely upon it as their primary pitch. 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". I feel like I'm surrounded by family, Niekro said of his many trips to Cooperstown. Phil Niekro (19392020), legendary knuckleball pitcher. Niekro, who pitched well into his 40s with a knuckleball that baffled big league hitters for more than two decades . and he is still predominantly recognized as the premier knuckleball pitcher in the game's history. Niekro and his family supported the students of Bridgeport High School with the proceeds from the annual golf tournament "The Niekro Classic". In this March 29, 2007, file photo, Baseball Hall of Famer Phil Niekro holds a knuckleball at the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland. [14] Niekro struck Burroughs out to end the game. Phil Niekro, the only knuckleball pitcher to win 300 Major League Baseball games, died in his sleep Saturday night after a long battle with cancer, the Atlanta Braves announced. His longevity is attributed to his knuckleball, which is a difficult pitch to master but is easy on the arm and often baffles hitters due to its unpredictable trajectory. First called up by Milwaukee in 1964, Niekro seesawed between the majors and minors, a pitcher struggling to find a niche and willing catchers. At 46 years, 188 days, Niekro became the oldest pitcher to pitch a shutout in the major leagues. His total of 5,404+13 innings pitched is the most by any pitcher in the post-1920 live-ball era. Facing Jeff Burroughs, an old friend and former Braves teammate, Phil Niekro threw four pitches -- the final three knucklers. Niekro threw a no-hitter against the Padres on Aug. 5, 1973, and won his 300th career game on the final day of the 1985 season by throwing just one knuckler on the last pitch of the game. The nice thing about Phil Niekro is, he doesn't look his age. The air flow over a seam of the ball causes the ball to change from laminar to turbulent flow. Position the Ball Seams are raised. R. A. Dickey estimates that it takes at least a year to grasp its fundamentals. Atlanta, Sept. 27, 1987 __ Phil Niekro was in a jam. Who throws the best knuckleball? "Knucksie was woven into the Braves fabric, first in Milwaukee and then in Atlanta. It hit me in the shinguard, bounced out to Clete Boyer at third base and he threw out the runner at first. Phil Niekro weighed 180 lbs (81 kg) when playing. "I got to meet a lot of important people. Niekro was remembered by the Hall as "master of the knuckleball and a great mentor, leader and friend." Niekro didn't make it to the big leagues until 1964, when he pitched 10 games in . This was common due to the amount of practice one must put into the pitch. The Niekro brothers would face each other nine times in their career, with Joes team winning five. These include the flutterball, the floater, the dancer, the butterfly ball (the name for the pitch used by French language game commentators employed by the Montreal Expos), the ghostball, and the bug. Phil Niekro won 318 games over his 24-year big league career. Phil Niekro, who rode his knuckleball to 318 wins and a spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame, has died at 81 of cancer. The four pitchers in the hall of fame include Phil Niekro, Ted Lyons, Jesse Haines, and Hoyt Wilhelm. The baseball field where he played at Bridgeport High School's Perkins Field athletic complex was renamed "The Niekro Diamond" in 2008 after Phil and his brother, fellow major league pitcher Joe Niekro. He played most of his many seasons with the Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves alongside brief stops with the Yankees, Blue Jays, and Cleveland. How tall was Phil Niekro? When was Phil Niekro born? But after 318 career victories over 24 big league seasons, Niekro was rewarded with the ultimate honor in Cooperstown. (Parker Fish/National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum), Brothers Joe (left) and Phil Niekro squared off against one another on July 4, 1967 in a game won by Phil's Atlanta Braves against the Chicago Cubs, 8-3. Philip Henry Niekro (/nikro/ NEE-kroh; April 1, 1939 December 26, 2020), nicknamed "Knucksie",[1] was an American baseball pitcher who played 24 seasons in Major League Baseball, 20 of them with the Milwaukee / Atlanta Braves. This is a difficult task. [30], On December 26, 2020, Niekro died in his sleep at age 81. His success eventually forced the team to take a chance on a knuckleballer as a starting pitcher. Phil Niekro showing his grip at the Baseball Hall of Fame. His brother Joe Niekro even pays him . Between 1964 and 1987, Phil racked up 318 wins (the most by a knuckleball pitcher), struck out over 3,000 and had a ERA of 3.35. Ueck told me if I was ever going to be a winner to throw the knuckleball at all times and he would try to catch it. While learning to trust the pitch which is pushed toward home plate without any spin, allowing air currents to move the ball unpredictably Niekro ascended through the Braves minor league system. This can be attributed to a variety of factors. How much did Phil Niekro weigh when playing? Phil Niekro was elected into the Hall of Fame in 1997. As of 2004[update], only about 70 Major League Baseball pitchers have regularly used the knuckleball during their careers, and its use has become rarer over time. ", "Knuckleballers' paths as tricky as the pitch", "MLB pitchers setting velocity records, altering balance of power", "Knuckleball life comes full circle for Wakefield", "Japan's 'Knuckle Princess' Arrives in U.S.", "Knuckleball pitchers may be a dying breed", "The art of the mysterious knuckleball is on the verge of extinction", "Wakefield, Dickey share a unique relationship", "R. A. Dickey calls Cy Young Award a victory for all knuckleballers", "Knuckleballer Mickey Jannis Making His MLB Debut at Age 33 Is So Cool", "Frazier breaks out knuckler in pitching debut", "You knew Wade Boggs could hit, but did you also know he had a nasty knuckleball? [21], At the age of 48, Niekro was the oldest player in major league history to play regularly until Julio Franco played at age 49 in 2007. As of 2021, four primary knuckleball pitchers are in the Baseball Hall of Fame today. Niekro and his younger brother Joe amassed 539 wins between them, the most combined wins by brothers in baseball history. (National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum), Phil Niekro was elected to the Hall of Fame's Board of Directors in 2009. [2] It was his third and final 20-win season and his second and final 20-loss season. But that was nothing new. By the end of 1987, his final season, Niekro ranked 10th among major leaguers in number of seasons played. Heck, he didn't even know where it was going most of the time. Niekro was the king of the knuckleballers, ranking first in victories and strikeouts (3,342). The Boston Red Sox, in their 2004 world championship season, had Mirabelli regularly catching in place of Jason Varitek when Tim Wakefield was pitching. Phil Niekro owns one of, if not, the best knuckleball in MLB history. "[28] The year before, Niekro had received the most Hall of Fame votes out of all the players in the ballot, but had not received the required 75% of the vote for election. [19], On September 23, 1987, Niekro signed again with his old team, the Atlanta Braves. Phil Niekro pitched a no-hitter in 1973 but his most memorable game with the Braves came in 1982, when the team started the season with 13 consecutive wins and . All three fingers. With the Braves Niekro earned 268 of his career 318 . (Milo Stewart Jr./National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum). 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 65mph pitch with less than one rotation. He was 81. Check out some of his best highlights here!Don't forget to subscribe! April 1st, 2022. Brothers Joe (left) and Phil Niekro squared off against one another on July 4, 1967 in a game won by Phil's Atlanta Braves against the Chicago Cubs, 8-3. The brothers were the sons of a coal miner[5] who had pitched semi-pro baseball and learned to throw a knuckleball from another coal miner. He'd made a living escaping such jams with a knuckleball that would . Win Expectancy, Run Expectancy, and Leverage Index calculations provided by Tom Tango of InsideTheBook.com, and co-author of The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball. He was the master of the most uncontrollable pitch baseball has ever seen an offering so confusing that its name, the knuckleball, is actually a misnomer. [1][8] He stayed with the major league team all year in 1965, pitching .mw-parser-output .frac{white-space:nowrap}.mw-parser-output .frac .num,.mw-parser-output .frac .den{font-size:80%;line-height:0;vertical-align:super}.mw-parser-output .frac .den{vertical-align:sub}.mw-parser-output .sr-only{border:0;clip:rect(0,0,0,0);height:1px;margin:-1px;overflow:hidden;padding:0;position:absolute;width:1px}74+23 innings in 41 games and recording six saves. He emerged from Ohio coal mine country as a conventional pitching prospect, signing with the Braves in 1958 but resisting the knuckleball until a minor league manager told him to throw the knuckler or go home., (My father) taught it to me in the backyard, Niekro said. Hall of Fame pitcher Phil Niekro, who rode his knuckleball to 318 victories, was the seventh Hall of Famer to pass away in 2020. . He . Phil Niekro signs autographs for fans in Cooperstown at the 2011 Hall of Fame Parade of Legends. He finally went to the knuckler for the game's final batter, striking out former teammate Jeff Burroughs on three pitches to cap the 8-0 victory and become the 18 th 300-game winner in history. I led the league in ERA [1.87], and he led the league in passed balls. From an interview with ESPN, Master of the knuckleball and a great mentor, leader and friend, Hall of Famer and @braves legend Phil Niekro passed away overnight at the age of 81. https://t.co/aj7uScYnuy pic.twitter.com/F1GmX9Yb1n. On October 6, 1985, Niekro gained entry into the 300 win club with a shutout win over the Toronto Blue Jays. Phil Niekro was a legendary Hall of Fame pitcher known for his knuckleball pitch, who played for the Braves most of his career. Phil Niekro, a pitcher who used his signature knuckleball to fool generations of hitters and craft a Hall of Fame career, died Saturday night in his sleep, the Braves announced Sunday. 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. Talk about a weird assist: 253 on a strikeout. While he was briefly promoted to the Class AAA Louisville Colonels in 1960, he spent the rest of that season pitching for the Jacksonville Braves. Signed in 1958, he didn't break through for good for nearly a decade.
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