The knuckleball is the oddest pitch in baseball. It is also the hardest to catch, and catchers hate trying. Nobody has thrown a knuckleball in the major leagues longer, and perhaps no one threw it better, then Phil Niekro.
Philip Henry Niekro was born on April 1st, 1939, in Blaine, Ohio, and grew up in nearby Lansing, Ohio. Both towns are close to the Ohio River, near Wheeling, West Virginia, and about 60 miles southwest of Pittsburgh.
He attended Bridgeport High School, in the nearby town of Bridgeport. Among its other alumni have been Phil's brother Joe Niekro, Boston Celtics basketball legend John Havlicek, Los Angeles Rams linebacker Bill Jobko, and legendary Iowa State University wrestling coach Bobby Douglas.
All 5 were born between 1935 and 1944, and Phil Niekro and Havlicek grew up as close friends.
In 1988, Sports Illustrated published an article by Ron Fimrite titled "The Valley Boys," focusing on the Wheeling Valley, centering on the town of Martins Ferry:
Old-time Pro Football Hall of Famer Clarke Hinkle was a Valley boy. So were Bob Gain and Calvin Jones, Outland Trophy winners as the nation's best college linemen in 1950 and 1955. Chuck Howley, the Dallas linebacker who is the only member of a losing team to have ever won the Super Bowl MVP award, was another one. Bill Jobko (Ohio State) and Bob Jeter (Iowa), both of whom played in the Rose Bowl and later starred in the NFL, were Valley boys. Gene Freese, a big league infielder for many years, was one. And so was Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz.
But there are six Valley boys who stand above the rest, giants in their sports. Two of them are already Hall of Famers; a third has only to wait his requisite five years for induction; and a fourth, grievously overlooked in the past, may yet get his just due. Another would surely have made the Hall of Fame of his sport were it not for one terrible mistake in his life. The sixth, until early this month, was still playing.
There are two brother combinations in this distinguished group, and all six grew up within seven miles of one another. Four, in fact, were born in Martins Ferry, and though three different high schools are involved, the schools are only minutes apart by car. Two were teammates and best friends.
They all came from immigrant mining families, and they were raised, by today's standards, in primitive circumstances. There were no fast cars in this crowd. No televisions. No rock concerts. Nor, for many years, indoor plumbing. And yet there is not one of them who would trade away the gift of his childhood. They are the pride of the Valley. And they, better than any, reveal the source of its indomitable spirit.
The brothers were Phil and Joe Niekro, and Lou and Alex Groza. Lou was an All-Pro offensive tackle and placekicker for the Cleveland Browns. Alex was a center who helped the University of Kentucky's "Fabulous Five" win the 1948 and 1949 National Championships, and the U.S. Olympic team win the Gold Medal at the 1948 Olympics in London. He was the 1950 NBA Rookie of the Year. The others were Havlicek and Pittsburgh Pirates 2nd baseman Bill Mazeroski.
Havlicek and Lou Groza were already in their respective sports' Hall of Fame. Phil Niekro was elected in 1997, in his 5th year of eligibility. Mazeroski, long hailed as the best defensive 2nd baseman of all time, and the hitter of the home run that won the 1960 World Series, continued to wait until 2001, and was finally elected.
Alex Groza looked like he was on course for the Hall of Fame, before the point-shaving scandal that rocked college basketball in 1951 ensnared Kentucky. Groza and his UK and Indianapolis Olympians teammates Ralph Beard and Dale Barnstable were banned for life by NBA Commissioner Maurice Podoloff. He never worked in the NBA again.
With no other pro league available, he went into coaching, at Bellarmine University in Louisville. His NBA ban did not apply to the ABA, nor did that league respect that ban. Their Kentucky Colonels and San Diego Conquistadors hired him.
Hall of Fame relief pitcher Rollie Fingers was also born nearby, in Steubenville, Ohio, also the hometown of singer-actor Dean Martin. However, when he was a boy, his father moved the family to California, so he did not remain a "Valley Boy."
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The Niekro brothers' father was a coal miner of Polish descent, who had pitched in semi-pro baseball. A fellow miner taught him how to throw a knuckleball, and he taught his sons. In 1959, Phil signed with the Milwaukee Braves. In 1965, Major League Baseball instituted a draft, and Joe, then attending West Liberty University in West Virginia, was drafted by the Cleveland Indians in 1966. He chose not to sign with them, and was drafted again later in the year, this time by the Chicago Cubs. He made his debut for them in 1967.
By that point, Phil had already made his major league debut, having lost a season by serving in the U.S. Army in 1963, the dawn of the Vietnam War era, although not in combat. It was on April 15, 1964, at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.
He wore the Number 35 that he would wear for every game of his career. In a disaster of an inning for the Braves, the San Francisco Giants scored 10 runs. Phil was the 3rd pitcher the Braves used in the inning, and pitched to 1 batter, Jim Davenport, inducing an inning-ending groundout. The Braves tried to come back, but they didn't make it, and lost 10-8.
He appeared with the Braves in 10 games in 1964, without a decision. He appeared in 41 games in 1965, all but 1 in relief, going 2-3 with 6 saves. The Braves moved to Atlanta for the 1966, and Phil turned out to be not only the last remaining Brave who had played for them in Milwaukee, but the last active player for any team who had played for the Milwaukee Braves.
He split his time between starting and relief in 1966 and 1967, and became a full-time starter in 1968, going 14-12. In 1969, he became the Braves' ace, going 23-13, making his 1st All-Star Game, and helping them win the 1st-ever National League Western Division title. However, he ran out of gas in the 8th inning of Game 1 of the NL Championship Series, and lost to the Mets.
The '69 Division title was an outlier for the Braves, as they were generally out of contention from 1965 to 1981. In spite of that, Phil went 15-14 in 1971, and 16-12 in 1972. In 1973, he went 13-10, and on August 5, pitched the 1st no-hitter for the Braves after the move to Atlanta, against the San Diego Padres.
In 1974, a season which began for the Braves with the record-breaking 715th career home run by Hank Aaron, Phil led the NL with 20 wins, 18 complete games and 302 1/3rd innings pitched. He finished 3rd in the voting for the NL's Cy Young Award, the closest he would come to winning it. In 1973 and '74, Phil and his brother Joe were teammates on the Braves.
Joe (left) and Phil, but knuckleballers
Phil was only 15-15 in 1975, but, with Aaron having gone back to Milwaukee to play for the Brewers, the Braves needed someone as a representative in the All-Star Game -- which was held in Milwaukee -- and Phil was selected.
He went 17-11 in 1976. On May 29, he gave up a home run to his brother Joe, the only home run Joe would ever hit in the major leagues. Joe's son, Lance Niekro, appeared as a 1st baseman with the Giants in the 2003, '05, '06 and '07 seasons. He is now the head coach at Florida Southern University.
With with little support, Phil went 16-20 in 1977. He went 19-18 in 1978, but, despite that win total, led the NL in losses. In 1979, having turned 40, he led it in both wins and losses: With a 21-20 record, he will, most likely, remain the last pitcher in MLB history both win 20 games and lose 20 games in the same season.
Only 5 pitchers in the 150-year history of Major League Baseball have won 20 games in a season after turning 40. Cy Young did it in 1907 and 1908. In the 100 years of the Lively Ball Era, there have been only 4. Grover Cleveland Alexander did it in 1927. In the 60 years of the Expansion Era, there have been only 3. Warren Spahn did it in 1961 and 1963. In the 50+ years of the Divisional Play Era, there have been only 2. Phil Niekro did it in 1979. In the 20 years of the 21st Century, there has been only 1: Jamie Moyer in 2003. So it's that rare.
We have seen a few pitchers hang on longer than most, due to throwing the knuckleball, which puts less stress on the human arm than any other widely-known pitch. These include Hoyt Wilhelm, Charlie Hough, Tom Candiotti and Tim Wakefield. They also include Wilbur Wood, who went 24-20 for the Chicago White Sox in 1972, making him the last pitcher in the American League to both win and lose 20 in the same season.
But only 4 pitchers have gotten to the Hall of Fame having relied on the knuckler: Wilhelm, Jesse Haines, Ted Lyons, and Phil Niekro. Why so few? There are 2 reasons. One is that, because the ball moves around so much, catchers have such trouble catching it. Catchers then complain to their coaches, who tell their managers, who then tend to use pitchers who throw it less.
The other reason is that, if you don't throw it just right, it straightens out, and, as the slowest widely-known pitch, it becomes the easiest to hit. Wakefield used it to great effect for the Boston Red Sox in beating the Yankees in Games 1 and 4 of the 2003 ALCS, but proved the other side of it in relief in Game 7, giving up a Pennant-winning home run on a 69-mile-per-hour pitch to Aaron Boone.
Jim Bouton, who switched to the knuckler after losing his fastball by wrecking his elbow, said, "Coaches don't respect it. You can pitch 7 good innings with a knuckleball, and as soon as you walk a guy, they go, 'See, there's that damn knuckleball." R.A. Dickey, who won the NL Cy Young Award for the Mets in 2012, mainly using it, has said, "It takes a special manager to be able to really trust it, the bad and the good of it. Coaches are quick to banish the pitch after one bad outing."
Charlie Lau, later to be better known as baseball's foremost hitting instructor, once said, "There are two theories about catching the knuckleball. Unfortunately, neither of them work." And Bob Uecker, later to become a great broadcaster, and a good defensive catcher, but couldn't hit to save anybody's life, once said, "The best way to catch a knuckleball is to wait until the ball stops rolling, and pick it up."
In his last season as a major league player, 1967, Uecker was on the Braves, and related this experience in catching Phil: "Niekro struck out a hitter once, and I never touched the ball. It hit me in the shinguard, bounced out to Clete Boyer at 3rd base, and he threw out the runner at 1st. Talk about a weird assist: 2–5–3 on a strikeout."
"Ueck told me if I was ever going to be a winner to throw the knuckleball at all times, and he would try to catch it," Phil said years later. "I led the league in ERA (1.87), and he led the league in passed balls."
Classically, the knuckleball is gripped not with the knuckles,
but with the tips of the index and middle fingers.
Phil kept pitching, and pitching well. Pete Rose, for once not loving being a big-league ballplayer, once said, "I work for 3 weeks to get my swing down pat, and Phil messes it up in one night... Trying to hit that thing is a miserable way to make a living."
Phil kept pitching, and kept getting insufficient support. In 1980, he went 15-18, leading the NL in losses. He was injured for a big chunk of 1981, and went just 7-7. Dale Murphy said, "When we weren't in the hunt, which was more times than not, that didn't stop his attitude and willingness to get out there. I just really admired him and loved being around him."
Bob Hope, a longtime Braves executive -- and no relation to the legendary entertainer of the same name, once a part-owner of the Indians -- said, "During that time frame, the teams weren't always very good. In fact, they were very bad sometimes. But we probably had the three highest-character athletes I've ever met: Phil Niekro, Hank Aaron and Dale Murphy... If you were a charity in Atlanta, you could always count on Phil Niekro participating in some way."
Finally, in 1982, the Braves got going. The team was then owned by broadcast executive Ted Turner, who put them on his network, "SuperStation" WTBS, and he gave them the nickname that somebody gave to the NFL's Dallas Cowboys: "America's Team." As the Chicago Cubs soon would as well, on "superstation" WGN, the Braves developed a national following, not just a regional one. And the revenue came in, allowing Turner to buy better players.
With Murphy coming into his own, winning the 1st of back-to-back NL Most Valuable Player awards, the Braves won the NL West, and Phil went 17-4, leading the NL with an .810 winning percentage. Unfortunately, just 2 outs from Game 1 of the NLCS against the St. Louis Cardinals being an official game, the rain came, and it was suspended, ending Phil's good pitching. It was started from the beginning, and the Cards went on to sweep the Braves, ending their 1st postseason series in 13 years. It would be 9 years before they had another.
Phil went 11-10 for the Braves in 1983. He pitched 201 1/3rd innings. He was 44 years old. And yet, after the season, the Braves released him. He had pitched 20 seasons for them, winning 268 games. In the 150 seasons that this franchise has existed, going back to the 1871 Boston Red Stockings of the National Association, only Warren Spahn (356) and Kid Nichols (331) have won more games for them. No, Greg Maddux didn't, nor did Tom Glavine: Although both won over 300 games, both of their totals are noticeably split with other teams.
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But the Braves let him go. And the Yankees, needing pitching, signed him for the 1984 season. He went 16-8, making his 5th and last All-Star Game. On July 4, at Arlington Stadium outside Dallas, he struck Larry Parrish of the Texas Rangers out, for his 3,000th career strikeout. He pitched 8 innings, with Jay Howell finishing up, and the Yankees won, 5-0.
In spite of the date posted on this photo,
the milestone was achieved on the road.
In 1985, at age 46, he went 16-12, helping to keep the Yankees in the AL Eastern Division race. On September 15, after 10 seasons with them, the Houston Astros traded Phil's brother Joe Niekro to the Yankees, and they were teammates for a few days. Joe went 2-1 for the Yankees down the stretch.
The Yankees they needed to sweep a season-ending series with the Toronto Blue Jays, at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto, to set up a Playoff for the Division title. They won on Friday night, but lost on Saturday afternoon, to give the Jays the title.
In the Sunday finale, on October 6, he went the distance against the Toronto Blue Jays, gaining his 300th win. The Yankees won, 8-0, with home runs by Don Mattingly, Mike Pagliarulo and Henry Cotto. He allowed only 4 hits, and became the oldest pitcher ever to throw a shutout, a record that stood until Jamie Moyer did it at 47 in 2010. Phil admitted that he did not throw a knuckleball until the last batter, Jeff Burroughs -- himself a longtime veteran, and the AL MVP in 1974.
It was the last game he pitched for the Yankees, as his 2-year contract ran out. Just before the season began, he signed with the Cleveland Indians -- not the closest team to his hometown (that would be the Pittsburgh Pirates), but a team in his home State. The Cleveland metro area still has a significant Polish community, and it really took to "Knucksie."
"Cleveland Rocks"? Cleveland knuckles.
He went 11-11 in 1986. In 1987, he was 7-11, and was traded in midseason for the Blue Jays. He made 3 starts, going 0-2, and was released. He was brought back by the Braves, and, on September 27, at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, he made one last start. Although he allowed 5 runs in 3 innings, he did not factor in the decision. Oddly, like his 1st appearance, his last appearance was for the Braves in a bad loss to the Giants, albeit at home this time: The Giants won, 15-6.
Phil then retired. At 48, he was the oldest regular player in major league history. This record would hold until 2007, when Julio Franco did so at 49 -- also for the Braves. His 24 seasons without appearing in a World Series is a record, breaking the 23 of Carl Yastrzemski.
He finished his career with 318 wins, more than any knuckleballer, and 274 losses. He ended up winning 121 games after his 40th birthday, more than any other pitcher. His career ERA was 3.35, and his ERA+ was 115. He had 3,342 strikeouts, more than all but 6 pitchers before him, and a WHIP of 1.268. His 5,404 1/3rd innings pitched is the most by any pitcher in the post-1920 Lively Ball Era.
For comparison's sake: Joe, who last appeared in an MLB game in early 1988, finished 221-204 -- giving them a combined total of 539 wins, the most of any brother combination in MLB history. His ERA was 3.59, and his ERA+ was 98. His WHIP was 1.319, and he had 1,747 strikeouts. He appeared in only 1 All-Star Game, in Seattle with the Astros in 1979.
However, in that 1979 season, Joe came in 2nd in the NL's Cy Young Award voting, behind Bruce Sutter. He finished 6th in the NL MVP voting that year, closer than Joe ever came. And, unlike Phil, Joe appeared in a World Series, finally doing so in 1987 with the Minnesota Twins, shortly before his 43rd birthday. He also appeared in the postseason with the 1972 Detroit Tigers and the 1980 and '81 Astros.
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The Braves elected Phil to their team Hall of Fame, retired his Number 35, and dedicated a statue of him outside Fulton County Stadium. It was moved to Turner Field, and now to Truist Park. Their farm team, the Gwinnett Braves, play at Coolray Field in Lawrenceville, Georgia, and it has a restaurant named Niekro's. It features the Knucksie Sandwich. Pig's knuckles? No, rather, it is something he was known to enjoy: Barbecued pork and cole slaw atop a corn muffin.
The brothers' alma mater, Bridgeport High School in Ohio, named its baseball field The Niekro Diamond, after both of them. They supported the school system with The Niekro Classic, a celebrity golf tournament.
From 1994 to 1997, Phil managed the Colorado Silver Bullets, a women's baseball team sponsored by Colorado-based Coors beer, which has nicknamed is Coors Light beer "the Silver Bullet." He hired Joe as a coach. In their last season, 1997, he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, in his 5th year of eligibility, and the Silver Bullet players accompanied him to Cooperstown for the celebrations.
Like his fellow late Hall-of-Famer, Tom Seaver, and also like Dale Murphy, Phil Niekro was married to a woman named Nancy. They had sons Philip, John and Michael, and grandchildren Chase and Emma. Joe died of a brain aneurysm in 2006, shortly before his 62nd birthday.
MLB Network ran a special, Icons Lost, honoring 6 members of the Hall of Fame who died in 2020: Seaver, Whitey Ford, Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Al Kaline and Joe Morgan. It aired too soon to include Phil Niekro. He had been diagnosed with cancer, and died on December 26, 2020, at his home in Flowery Branch, Georgia. He was 81 years old.
Dale Murphy, Braves legend: "Nancy and I are deeply saddened by the news today of the passing of Phil Niekro. Knucksie was one of a kind. Friend, teammate, father and husband. Our hearts go out to Nancy Niekro, the kids and grandkids. So thankful for our memories and time together. We'll miss you, Knucksie."
Tom Glavine, another Hall of Fame pitcher for the Braves: "He is, for sur,e one of the most beloved Braves of all time. There's no question about that... I've never heard anybody say they didn't like Knucksie. That says a lot. When you're an athlete or celebrity to some extent, there will inevitably be people who don't like you for whatever reason, even though they don't know you. But you never heard that about Knucksie. Everybody loved him."
John Smoltz, yet another Hall of Fame pitcher for the Braves: "Phil made you feel like you were the only Hall-of-Famer in the building. That is something that he will always be known for... the way he made you smile, the way he made you feel."
Dave Winfield, Hall-of-Famer and Yankee teammate in 1984 and '85: "You get beaten down to learn another Hall of Fame friend Phil Niekro passed away. He was kind, a gentleman, family man, master of his trade and teammate."
Phil Niekro was one of the most distinctive legends in baseball history. And he was exactly the kind of man you would hope such a legend would be.
