The Future of the Knuckleball

One.

The number is a rarity in the world of sports, but there is an exception that I find increasingly disturbing. You see, this tiny number refers to the amount of pitchers in Major League Baseball who feature the pitch known as the knuckleball. The only active practitioner, Boston's Tim Wakefield, is in his 14th season with the club, and is closing in on breaking the record for most wins by a Redsox pitcher in history (held by Cy Young and Roger Clemens). The magic number to beat is 192, and this is most certainly within reach if the knuckleballer can stay in the game for another four to five seasons and keep up with his reputation for providing quality starts and giving his team an opportunity to win games. With a career like Wakefields and a pitch that prolongs careers (Phil Niekro played until he was 48), it would seem that clubs would be interested in the possibility of working on developing some good knuckleball pitchers.

This, however, is not the case. It now seems that my favorite pitch in all of baseball slowly seems to be going the way of the Tyrannosaurus Rex... extinct.

While many teams continue to ignore younger pitchers who cant light up 90+ on a radar gun, it is not surprising to find the only organization in baseball that seems to be interested in young knuckleball pitchers is the Boston Redsox. This may stem from the fact that Boston has more of an ability to instruct and develop these pitchers with Wakefield in the mix of things. Nevertheless, with the exception of the Chicago White Sox (who have Charlie Haeger) the Redsox have held a sort of monopoly on knuckleball pitchers in the minor leagues over the past few years with names such as John Barnes and Charlie Zink. While Barnes is now a minor league free agent, Zink is pitching exceptionally well for AAA Pawtucket, and has already been dubbed the next Tim Wakefield by those within the organization. Hopefully his great numbers on the year will result in a short call-up opportunity now that Buchholz has been placed on the DL. While other names of recent knuckleballers come to mind such as Jared Fernandez (who had breif stints with the Reds, Astros, and Brewers), R.A. Dickey (who is currently pitching for the Seattle Mariners AAA team), and Steve Sparks (who is now retired), it is not surprising to note that most of these pitchers have had problems staying in one place for an extended period of time.

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