It's About Time
On August 3, four men were inducted into baseball's Hall
of Fame: pitcher Phil Niekro, second baseman Nellie Fox, Negro league shortstop Willie
Wells, and manager Tom Lasorda. We asked Sports Illustrated's Tim Kurkjian, a Hall of Fame voter, to reflect on
the career of one of his favorite pitchers.
Phil Niekro should have been a first-ballot Hall of Famer.
No way he should have had to wait until the fifth year he
was eligible. What took the voters so
long?
Niekro won 318 games, which places him 14th on the all-time
list. He struck out 3,342 batters, the eighth-best total in
history—more than Bob Gibson. He threw 45 shutouts—more
than Bob Feller. His career ERA was 3.35—only slightly
higher than Catfish
Hunter's. (Gibson and Feller were first-ballot Hall of Famers;
Hunter made it on the third
try.)
Niekro amassed these lofty numbers despite pitching most of
his 24-year career for horrible Atlanta Braves teams.
Making matters even more difficult, the Braves played in
one of the greatest hitter's parks of all time,
Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.
(Don't think for a second that ballpark factors aren't
relevant: Those numbers never
lie.)
For three straight years, 1977 through '79, Niekro won at
least twice as many games as any other pitcher on his team.
In 1979 he won 21; the No. 2 guy won eight. He led the
league that year in complete games (23), innings pitched
(342)—and losses
(20).
I've been a Hall of Fame voter for seven years; I voted for
Niekro five times. Too many voters held it against Niekro
that he pitched until he was 48 and, at the end, looked
like a grandfather on the
mound.
The naysayers believe Niekro reached career milestones
through longevity alone. That's wrong. Anyway, longevity
should be viewed as a positive, not a negative. Granted,
Niekro didn't pitch well in his final two seasons (1986 and
'87), but if he had
retired after a 16-12 season for the Yankees in 1985, he would
have finished with a 300-250 record. Interestingly, his
ERA at that point was 3.22—exactly that of Steve Carlton, who
breezed into the Hall (and rightfully so) in his first year
of
eligibility.
It took Niekro five years to reach
Cooperstown partly because he threw a knuckleball. That's
the most knuckleheaded reason for voting against him. Critics
say it's not a "manly" pitch, because it flutters
in at 60 or 65 mph. They say it's a trick pitch, one thrown
by those who can't throw hard enough, or don't have good
enough stuff. (Niekro
proved a point on the final day of the '85 season when he shut
out the Blue Jays without throwing one
knuckler.)
Hey, since the knuckler puts little strain on a pitcher's
arm, Niekro was able to pitch for 24 years. How is that a
negative? Plus, most hitters tell me they'd rather face a
guy throwing a 95-mph fastball than a guy throwing a
floating, dancing 60-mph
knuckler.
I once asked Charlie Hough, another great knuckleball
pitcher, why more pitchers didn't throw a knuckleball.
"Why don't more pitchers throw 95
mph?" Hough shot back. "Because it's really hard to
do!"
Since 1920, only 22 pitchers who threw a knuckleball as
their primary pitch lasted at least four years in the major
leagues. Since 1966, when the amateur draft began, no
pitcher using a knuckleball as his primary pitch has ever
been selected. Since 1948
only one knuckleball pitcher (Tim Wakefield of the 1992
Pirates) has won a postseason
game.
We should credit, not condemn, anyone who throws a
knuckleball. Most of the time a knuckleball pitcher has
very little clue what the ball will do. Yet he continues to
throw the knuckler as much as 90% of the
time.
Former knuckleballer Dan Boone once marveled at the courage
of his famous forefather, Daniel Boone. "But,"
Dan said, "I don't know if he'd have had the guts to
throw a knuckleball on 3 and 2 with the bases
loaded."
Phil Niekro pitched with guts and heart and great skill for
2 1/2 decades. Now he's joining Hoyt Wilhelm and Pop Haines as
the only knuckleball pitchers in the
Hall.
It's about
time.
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