Yeah, that title isn’t dirty, is it? well, i happened to be watching a highlight from the Red Sox last night featuring Tim Wakefield, and I got to thinking: I should research Wakefield’s primary pitch, the knuckleball.

Google finds a trove of information, but the first link is the best — Knuckleball H.Q.. A bunch of info on throwing, hitting, and knuckleball lore. My personal fave: “You need the fingers of a safecracker and the mind of a Zen Bhuddist to throw it.” – Jim Bouton, Ball Four, and this anecdote — “Floyd Robinson actually swung at one that went BEHIND him…”

So, yeah, knuckleballers are an interesting lot. No one has become extremely successful with a knuckleball, but they certainly hold an interesting place in the baseball world. Many of them have had extremely long careers — Charlie Hough, Wilhelm Hoyt, and Phil Niekro all had 20 year-plus careers. However, along with the longevity that the knuckleball affords — there is the problem that the pitch is hard as hell to catch. A list of passed ball records (note the run-causing, game-winning passed ball list) shows that many of the catchers and lost games were from famous knuckleballers. As Bob Uecker explains, the best way to catch it is “wait’ll it stops rolling, then go pick it up.”

Finally, what happens when you put Boston’s Tim Wakefield up against Toronto’s Frank Castillo? (Keeping in mind that Toronto is an American League team, and they have the Designated Hitter rule, and Castillo is a pitcher with a .110 lifetime batting average) Here’s the punchline in video format.