Quote:
Originally Posted by BMW
Here's an article from that win, which also surpassed Satchel Paige's record for the oldest pitcher to throw a shutout.
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The projection for Dwight Gooden to have 451 wins by age 40 made me smile. Actual total: 194. We all know the primary reason why. It was natural, though, to succumb to excessive exuberance about him at the time. Niekro won his 300th game on the last day of the season in 1985. Gooden had won 41 games in his first two years in the league and he was only 20 years old.
Back to Niekro, though. This guy was old.
Old! He was 46 when he won that game and he played a couple of years more before retiring.
"Defying age, of course, is part of the magic of the knuckleball. Hoyt Wilhelm, the other knuckler with a plaque in Cooperstown, retired at 49. Charlie Hough was 46, Tim Wakefield 45, R.A. Dickey 42."
He was also one of the last of dying breed:
"The website Fangraphs, which tracks every pitch, counted only three pitchers who threw the knuckleball in 2020: Erik Kratz, Todd Frazier and Bryan Holaday, position players moonlighting as pitchers at the end of blowouts."
Another indication of longevity:
"Niekro was 27 before he reached the majors for good, in August 1966, but his mastery of that one pitch gave him a staggering kind of durability. He had just 31 victories by his 30th birthday, and 287 thereafter . . . Niekro would finish with 5,404 innings, fourth on the career list behind Cy Young, Pud Galvin and Walter Johnson, who were all born in the 19th century."
In the spring, I might dig out my mitt and ball and try my hand at the knuckler in the backyard.
