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Baseball. Blogging. Whenever.Monday, February 23, 2009Lance NiekroI first heard tell of this back in December, but Saturday's New York Times updated Lance Niekro's attempt to come back as a knukleballer just like his old man and his uncle Phil:The Elias Sports Bureau studied 190 father-son combinations in major league history and found that in 143 cases — three out of four — sons do just what their fathers did. That is, if the father was a position player, so was the son. And if the father was a pitcher, so was the son. As most of you know, I have a pretty strong knuckleballer fetish, so I'd really like this to work. I also have a pretty strong comic book fetish, so I can totally feature this as one of those stories in which a seemingly ordinary man discovers his true superhero destiny. Like Kal-el speaking to Clark Kent from the great beyond in the Fortress of Solitude or the bat crashing through the window of Bruce Wayne's study. I mean really, how cool would it be for Lance Niekro, after years of walking his own path, to don his late father's armor and bring justice to the baseball world via inherited guile, filed nails, and the flutter of his knuckler? But, as I noted back in December, the likelihood of such a thing coming to pass is low. Knuckleballers are not gimmick pitchers or mere tricksters. They're real pitchers who have to master mechanics and technique and a pitcher's mental approach to the game just like a guy with a plus fastball and a sharp slider. Indeed, it's probably harder for a knuckler, partially because few organizations seem to have the patience it requires to bring one along, and partially because the margin of error for a knuckler is so thin to begin with. And that goes for guys who have been pitching for years, which Niekro certainly has not. Niekro is either going to click quick or he's going to get utterly shelled. And though I hope it's not the case, the odds favor the latter. (thanks to Blaze, followed quickly by tHeMARksMiTh, for the heads up) Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 8:55am Comments
Craig Calcaterra said...
Actually, I appreciate you pointing that out, because I thought I might have been wrong with it. My defense: I really don’t care much for Superman at all. Posted 02/23 at 10:34 AM
Timmy said...
Heck, even if the knuckler doesn’t work out for him, he’s in the right organization to get back to the bigs as a hitter. If the Braves can allow JF-K to lead the team in PAs year in and year out, why not give a few chances to the guy who’s related to one of our HOFers. Here’s to hoping there’s some hereditary trait that favors being able to throw an amazing knuckleball. Posted 02/23 at 11:38 AM
obsessivegiantscompulsive said...
Love Superman, it’s Jor-El, but not really him, I think it’s suppose to be a computer simulation of his brain or something, to be technical. :^) The caveat I should note about Lance and his knuckler is that he’s been throwing his knuckler for years now, not sure when exactly, but he’s been talking about that as his backup plan should he not make it as a position player. The caveat on that is that he started doing that for show to Giants management in his last year with them, and given their expertise in pitching, plus prior reclamation projects where they took position players who weren’t doing so well and converted them to pitchers (Joe Nathan being their most famous conversion), and I never saw any good word about his try-out, that speaks to what you are saying about the hard odds he will be battling to make it as a pitcher. But given that his uncle, one of the best ever, is probably (has probably) been giving him personal training on this forever, I wouldn’t bet against it. Posted 02/23 at 11:42 AM
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Do I point out that it is usually Jor-El speaking to Clark Kent…No fight the geek urge. Fight it…