The McGrath essay is a classic, and it made me wonder then, as I do know, why no one else sees the value in having a knucklers on staff. I know the Sox have Charlie Zink in the minors - does anyone else have a knuckler in the system?

By the way, I don't suppose Wake has any shot at ever making the Hall of Fame, but in my book, he's everything a major league ballplayer should be.

I think it just boils down to: "It's really hard". It may not be as physically taxing, but even the Sox's up-and-coming knucklers are still struggling too much to be brought up to the big leagues.

Timmy Teammate! Topstep Timmy! Look, he's always on the top step, cheering the team on. He is why I love baseball!

i agree with yall. the sox, and all of baseball for that matter, just wouldnt be the same without tim wakefield. It will be a sad day when he hangs it up and retires. I also want to say that I believe that he signed a contract that keeps him in boston until the want to realease him ( ya right) or he retires. Its a choice that he made to only make 4 mil a year in order to stay with the team that he loves, the ultimate team player!!!

Wake has gotten the short end of the stick for a long time, he doesn't get the accolades, and he doesn't seek them out. He makes you proud to be a Sox fan.

Chaos Theory and the Knuckleballer
for Tim Wakefield

On the mound you stand -just so- exhale -so-
throw at the same spot over and over.
There's only one way to toss a knuckleball,
near-impossibly simple; your fingernails flick it
at the distant lozenge of your catcher's mitt,
and it must be thrown so evenly
the ball won't spin at all,
60 feet six inches from hand to plate,
it can't rotate, not once.

At its end, it turns a half inch
so when the slits end, it turns a half inch
so when the slight braking surface
of its raised stitched-seam
shears against the stream of air
the ball ploughs through,
that change in flow will kick it aside
-not much- enough
for a bat to swipe over, under,
just to the left of where the ball was.
Or not.

Somedays, it's like trying to throw an oak leaf
across the street into your neighbor's half-closed mailbox.
Somedays it's good: you're on;
just that the ball perversely dips and skews
straight to the bat - right out of the park.
Or the ball won't break, just hangs
like a bright piñata. Somedays it's perfect.

You can't hold runners for a damn,
floating that ball towards home like a soap bubble,
but most will wait anyway,
for the ball to lunge under the bat into the dirt,
carom off the catcher's shin-guard, and roll
-like an evil bunt- into the on-deck circle.
Anything too good by a hair,
or not good enough, kills you.

After a shutout (or single inning debacle)
reporters want to know Why - What happened?
As the press corps questions swirl around you
and the baseball that nestles like a Buddha in your glotles like a Buddha in your glove,
you sense a slight breeze, an eddy so weak
it can barely sift through heat rising off the dirt.
A drop of sweat left on the ball? A stray mosquito?
The fat guy in the forth row who blew on his coffee?
Who knows? Who knows how this pitch makes itself?

They say, to Jehovah, men were tools:
Samuel a sword, Isaiah a trumpet.
What are you to a knuckleball
that pulls the world into itself?


© 1998 by Robert J McCaffery Jr.

I hope Tim stays healthy this year because he makes a huge difference despite being overshadowed by the other starters. Go Wake!

I never post on the internet, but this is different. Tim Wakefield may never get the chance to be HoF, but every year he makes a difference. Every start he quietly holds up his end of the game and gives his team a chance to win. Sure, sometimes he coughs-up a hairball, but never really melts down.

And us Boston fans love him like no other. Grady can never come back. The Babe is a bum. Roger can flirt with us, but will we ever really forgive him? Buckner's whole career is defined by a groan.

But Wake. He can lose us a trip to the Series, and we welcome him back with open arms every year. I don't know why. Other than because we just love him.