Keep Your Sullied Stars, Give Me Tim Wakefield!

(Photo by Stephen Dunn/Getty Images)

It has literally nothing to do with Tim Wakefield himself and literally everything to do with that topsy-turvy knuckleball of his. For years now—almost 15 in Boston, to be exact—I have sat on the couch to watch Wakefield pitch, and my head acted just like his signature pitch. A slow, swerving, dancing, darting concoction of half-snores and drool. On a good day, I managed to keep my chin from spiking the center of my chest or, even worse, the floor. For the life of me, I just can’t stay engaged when I see the spin-less floater tossed up to the plate over and over...and over. I would leave Wakefield alone by himself on my screen, throwing his tumbling teasers to the world’s best hitters, to go fetch a glass of water. I’d come back, and there he was. I’d get up to dig a magazine out of the mail, flip through the interesting stories, skim the less intriguing, and then come back to the ballgame—and Wakefield was still there.

“Geez, does this guy ever get knocked out?”

Yes, sometimes he does, but the majority of the time he just absorbs the blows. This I have come to learn. It’s taken me all these years to warm up to watching Wakefield pitch, but I finally got it. If I’m not guilty of negligence, then there isn’t a soul on this earth that is.

In the earlier years, Wakefield was nothing more than an average pitcher, a guy I figured would get his jock cleaned by some of baseball’s more menacing lineups. For the longest time, sending Wakefield to the mound was nothing more than a cruel, sinister joke. I have always marveled at his courage, because after all, you couldn’t pay me enough to stand 60 feet, six inches from men who make a living whirling a deadly weapon around and dangle a treat at 58 miles per hour. No thanks.

But this season has been different. I have watched Wakefield from the beginning, and I watched him win his American League-best 11th game of the season Wednesday evening at Fenway Park, pitching six innings against the Oakland A’s. What struck me was that I can’t remember the last time Wakefield didn’t take the mound for the Red Sox and just do his job. But Wakefield should be used to that; he’s been making believers out of doubters his entire career. It’s not entirely our fault. I mean, Wakefield wasn’t even supposed to be a pitcher to begin with.

Wakefield was a corner infielder in college and was drafted as a hitter in the eighth round of the 1988 Amateur Draft by the Pittsburgh Pirates. He holds single-season records for home runs (22) and RBI (71) in addition to the career home run record (40) for the mighty Panthers. The Florida Institute of Technology Panthers, that is. By all means, Wakefield should be writing computer code instead of scouting reports. After being told by a scout that he would never make the big leagues as a position player, Wakefield began tinkering with the knuckleball and made the switch to full-time pitcher in 1990. By ’92, the Pirates were calling for Wakefield in August in search of another arm to boost them into the postseason. Wakefield threw a complete game against the St. Louis Cardinals in his major league debut, and the good times rolled. Wakefield finished the year 8-1 with a 2.15 ERA, was named National League Rookie Pitcher of the Year by the Sporting News, and beat Tom Glavine twice in the NLCS. However, the Pirates lost to the Atlanta Braves in seven games. Control problems over the next year and a half, combined with the '94 players strike, led to Wakefield’s release in April 1995. Once again, fools did not believe.

A week later, the Boston Red Sox jumped on the opportunity to pick up Wakefield, and what a ride it has been—for both sides. Over the next 15 seasons, Wakefield won two World Series rings and provided valuable innings out of the bullpen in the playoffs. After giving up a walk-off home run to the Yankees

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