Dickey Lets Fly

Relying on the knuckleball for your livelihood is a bit like a farmer counting on a monsoon for a little rain. In the history of baseball, there have been only about 70 pitchers who have done it, and for good reason. The pitch is so freakish, so unpredictable, that coaches disdain it and catchers distrust it. “You don’t catch the knuckleball,” Joe Torre has said. “You defend against it.”

It’s been driving hitters crazy since roughly the start of professional baseball. A successful knuckleball does not spin at all. It comes in slow—60 to 65 mph—and with an erratic, unpredictable motion. A good knuckleball is nearly impossible to hit, and has inspired eloquent descriptions from frustrated batters: a butterfly with hiccups, eating Jello with chopsticks, a curveball that doesn’t give a damn.

In the middle of the 2005 season, Dickey began the challenging conversion to knuckleball pitcher, with mixed results. The low point may have been April 4, 2006. His first—and last—start for Texas that season resulted in a Major League record-tying six home runs, a dubious achievement shared with fellow knuckleballers Charlie Hough and Boston ace Tim Wakefield. Dickey was sent back to Oklahoma the following day, and remained there the rest of the season, trying to find himself.

“A lot of being successful at this is finding out what your personality is with it,” he explains. “I was trying to be the prototypical knuckleballer, but mine are mostly in the 78 to 80 mph range. Part of my evolution was to stop fighting that. It has also been in my development as a human being. I’ve had to learn to give up control, to trust, to experience being present in the moment.”

Texas released him after the 2006 season and he signed with Milwaukee, knowing he’d be assigned to Nashville. Things didn’t start out real well this year. As a starter, he went 1-4 with a 6.17 ERA, and in mid-May he went to the bullpen. It was there that he says he began to understand more the mechanics of the knuckleball—in eight relief outings, he was 3-0 and had a 4.95 ERA. It was on a road trip to Omaha the second weekend in June that he had a metaphorical initiation into the fraternity of knuckleheads.

“All the years I’ve been in Triple-A, when we’ve been in Omaha, I could see the Missouri River from the hotel,” Dickey says. “I was always betting my teammates that I could swim across that river. On our road trip there in June, a bunch of guys put up some money and I decided it was now or never. We went down and I waded into the river and started swimming. It was from about here”—he points to the rail at the top of the dugout—“to there”—pointing to the outfield wall, a distance of more than 350 feet. “I got pretty far out, and got caught up in the current. I knew if I didn’t turn back, I would die. I almost didn’t make it. If I had done it when I was younger, I would have died trying. I lost the bet, but when I got out of the river—it’s hard to explain—I felt freed to be who I am, that I didn’t have to live up to anyone else’s expectations.”

Back at Greer Stadium, Dickey rejoined the rotation. In eight starts since then, he is 4-1 with a 2.04 ERA. Last week in Iowa, he pitched his second complete seven-inning game, both in doubleheaders and both resulting in wins.

“I feel good,” he says, relaxed and confident. “Knuckleballers are a little bit eccentric, and I think it’s appropriate that I’m there. I’ve always been a little bit different, but now I’m able to use it.”