Knucksie Floats Into Cooperstown
To mark Phil Niekro's induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame, CNN/SI presents these classic passages from Sports Illustrated
Atlanta Tranquillity Base
Calm and quiet and always on the edge of sleep, Phil Niekro is the latest knuckleballer to drive everyone berserk with yaw and flutter
by Roy Blount Jr.
Issue date: August 4, 1969
They tell the story in Atlanta that a visiting African dignitary once stood behind the Braves' batting cage, watched Phil Niekro's knuckleball execute three jukes and a stutter step on its way to the plate and cried out, "Voodoo!" Now, inasmuch as voodoo is a product of the West Indies rather than Africa (much less Poland, where the Niekro family background lies), that story may be at least partly fanciful. But the fact remains that Phil Niekro's knuckleball is eerie—a fact noted by millions last week when Niekro retired the last American League batters in the All Star game 1-2-3.
All knuckleballs are eerie, if they work, since they seem to transcend natural law. Unlike any other projectile known to man, a properly knuckled ball will change direction suddenly, several times, in different ways and for no apparent reason. If someone had thrown a knuckleball down out of that tree, and Sir Isaac Newton had seen it coming and dodged it three times and it had hit him on the head anyway, it is frightening to think what we might now believe about the universe.
What happens is that when Niekro arches the first two fingers of his right hand so that only their tips and nails touch the ball, he forsakes all humanly imparted spin and consigns his delivery to the diverse air currents between him and the plate. That
is why he has hit so many catchers in the forehead. It is also why some sluggers just take their 0 for 4s and forget about it when they have to face Niekro. "When I was with the Phillies," the Braves' Bob Uecker maintains, "Richie Allen used to go up there and just swing at anything and sit down. He didn't want to mess up his swing fooling around with a thing like that."
Still, while Niekro has hoodooed catchers and hitters for several years he had not won many more games than he had lost until this season, when he and a 20-year-old rookie receiver named Bob Didier at last brought his wizardry more or less under control.
Consequently, the taciturn, placid 30-year old right-hander has a 15-8 record, as many wins as anyone in the majors, and he should become the first knuckleballer ever to win more than 20 games in a season. More important to Atlanta, he might even become the Braves' first abiding stopper since Warren Spahn. Because knuckleballs seem to suspend the natural aging process in the arm, Niekro might then settle down into relief work until 1985, when he will reach the present age, 46 of senior knuckleballer Hoyt Wilhelm, who is currently helping out the Angels in his 18th big league season. Niekro might even last longer than Wilhelm. That would be eerie.
He Didn't Knuckle Under
After being 0-7, Atlanta's Phil Niekro got his flutter back and has resumed his inexorable drive to become the all-time winningest thrower of the Iron Butterfly
by Jim Kaplan
Issue date: September 12, 1977
With his sad eyes, self-deprecating Polish jokes and legendary sleeping habits—he once snored through a brawl on a team charter—Niekro is appropriately phlegmatic. He keeps no books on hitters, cares not which park or what weather he is pitching in and never takes his losses out of the clubhouse. Niekro also forgoes all superstitions, which is no small feat for a man born with one green eye and one blue eye on April Fool's Day. "A woman who lives nearby brings over a four-leaf clover every time I pitch at home and a man insists on having a beer at my house," he says. "It's not something I would do, but I appreciate their help."
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