He Is The Granddaddy Of The Knuckleball, Hoyt Wilhelm

The knuckleball is almost a lost art in baseball.  Now it's all about speed.  It's all about location.  It's all about pitch count.

None of those things have anything to do with the knuckleball.

There's no (or very little) speed to it.  Location?  Heck, you never know where the knuckleball will end up!  Pitch count?  While almost all major league starter's these days don't throw over a hundred pitches, even in a great game. knuckleballers?  Well, they'll throw a hundred before the game starts!  In the game?  Oh, maybe 120, 130, more.

R.L. Dickey is one of the extremely few that uses the knuckleball almost exclusively.  As a kid, I remember Wilbur Wood used the knuckleball exclusively (He once won...and lost...20 games in a season.  And started both games of a double header!).

But one of the Grandfather's of the knuckleball would have to be Hoyt Wilhelm.  I remember Hoyt late in his career when I was a kid.

But the basic question is this:  What the heck is a knuckleball??

Here, Hoyt explains.