R.A. Dickey could really ‘knuck’ the trend if he wins the NL Cy Young.
Dickey, who leads the National League with a 2.67 ERA, would become the first knuckleball pitcher to win the award and his push is gaining traction thanks to two fellow knuckleballers.
“He’s having the best season any knuckleball pitcher has ever had,” Hall of Fame knuckleball pitcher Phil Niekro said Thursday while promotiong the documentary “Knuckleball!” at MLB Fan Cave in Manhattan. “Looking at his stats, his ERA and the strikeouts, walks, innings pitched, there’s no doubt statistic-wise that R.A. is the man. Cy Young, right now, he’s my vote.”
Dickey is second in the NL in wins (18) and strikeouts (205). Dickey’s success is unprecedented for a knuckleball pitcher and his winning of the award would go a long way toward helping to “legitimize” the pitch.
“I think he deserves to win the Cy Young, I think he has the numbers and the credentials to do it,” retired knuckleballer Tim Wakefield said. “If R.A. wins it this year it’s really going to say something about our pitch.”
Like most knuckleballers, Dickey’s pitch has been viewed as somewhat gimmicky and is often overlooked. Even during the Mets ace’s string of back-to-back one-hitters, it was Johan Santana’s no-hitter that was the talk of the town.
“It’s been [overlooked] for a while,” Wakefield said. “It shouldn’t be viewed as a circus pitch, it’s a legitimate pitch and should be taken seriously because the value that a knuckleball can bring to any staff is immeasurable.”
While fellow members of the knuckleball fraternity stump for him, Dickey himself is not overly concerned with winning 20 games or the Cy Young award.
“It would be very satisfying,” Dickey said. I don’t necessarily play for awards. In this moment I think I am able to hold it into a perspective that doesn’t distract me from the task at hand and that’s winning on Saturday against the Marlins, that’s my only concern. Hopefully the statistics will take care of those other arguments.”
Dickey, Niekro and Wakefield were all promoting “Knuckleball!” created by Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg at the MLB Fan Cave in Manhattan. While the film is geared to inform fans about the life of a knuckleball pitcher, Dickey is the main reason the pitch has been thrust into the national baseball conversation.
“I’m extremely excited for R.A.,” Niekro said. “He has every knuckleball pitcher alive watching him right now, plus every baseball fan, pitcher and batter.
“If you’re a good knuckleball pitcher, just like any other pitcher, they are going to talk about you. They talk about Randy Johnson’s fastball, talk about Steve Carlton’s slider, talk about R.A.’s knuckleball, I don’t see any difference in it.”
Dickey, who will turn 38 next month, has had the benefit from working with and learning from three of the greatest knuckleball pitchers of all-time. The problem for many knuckleball pitchers is that because the pitch is so unorthodox and so few pitchers throw it, there is a lack of coaches who can hone the skill in young hurlers.
“I’ve been schooled under arguably the three best knuckleballers ever in Phil [Niekro]. Charlie [Hough] and Tim [Wakefield] all of them have 200 or more wins,” Dickey said. “It’s a very difficult thing to [teach], it’s not easy, and that’s one of the reasons why you don’t see more people trying to do it. Everybody has their own personality with the pitch and that’s a difficult thing to teach.”
The unique pitch also doesn’t act like your standard fastball or breaking ball in the sense that no two players throw the ball the exact same way and that batters usually expect the pitch when they are standing in the box against Dickey.
“You really need to make the commitment that I’m a knuckleball pitcher,” Niekro said. “(You have to say) I don’t throw fastballs, curveballs, sliders, circle changes, occasionally I will, but a guy has to realize I’m going to throw [the knuckleball] pitch after pitch after pitch. It’s a guessing game sometimes between the batter and the pitcher, there’s no guessing [with a knuckleballer], they know what’s coming.”
Dickey’s acceptance of himself as a knuckleballer in his own right has led to his success late in his career as well.
“I think once R.A. stopped trying to emulate me, or Phil [Niekro] or Charlie [Hough] and embraced his own personality with the pitch and kind of let go, of trying to be somebody else [that he understood the pitch,]” Wakefield said. “I think it’s a big reason why he’s been so successful because it’s the same thing we all did.”
Regardless of if he wins the award or not, Dickey has brought glory to a small brotherhood of baseball players.
“We’re all proud of him and what he’s accomplished this year,” Wakefield said.
asulla-heffinger@nypost.com