I highly recommend reading his book, "Wherever I Wind Up". I've never played baseball, not even as a Little League-aged kid, and I thought his book was phenomenal.
@@Twister051 i have his strike out book, its most good , damn i miss R.A he was so awesome and seemed like such a great guy to have a beer with. would be cool if he could come back to the Jays or Buffalo to be a pitching coach
If you got a young talented pitcher, it would be insane to not teach them this pitch and have them start working on it. Super Effective, and it saves arms
if i ever get to be in the same room as Dickey, the first thing i’ll say is “you have the filthiest pitches but the easiest voice to talk to” one of the greatest pitchers the league have ever had opportunity to see. being a good player doesn’t always mean putting up the best numbers, it also means being respectable. and Dickey is one of the most respectable pitchers to ever be on the mound!
Bro the knuckle ball is a pain It’s the pitch that got me back into baseball I’ve got mine down to about two rotations but damn...... I’ve only ever thrown three perfect knuckle balls and brothers let me tell you It slips out of your hand like a weightless bubble gliding through the air tumbling and shaking until it finally drops
i mean.. he doesnt have to say, he shows us where the ring finger goes, emphasizing keeping his fingers off the seams. the sweetspot timing on the release is the secret here.
Nothing more satisfying in sports than figuring out the alchemy of a knuckleball. Every person has to figure out their grip that works for their hand and arm. It's absolute wizardry.
Dickey says he would have been an English professor if he hadn't made it in baseball. You can tell just from listening to this interview. Very smart guy, and yet very humble. Good Christian southerner.
Evolution happened and all religions were founded on psychedelic drugs… u think the first person that tripped knew he ate some mushrooms and everything will be fine… nah he was like “dude I just saw god” to his buddy 😂🥱💀
I'm 42 and even though I don't play, I just started figuring it out. The grip? Easy. The throw itself? EASY. Getting the damn ball not to catch and release and not spin. SHUT THE FRONT DOOR. It's really really hard to do. Easy on the arm, but it will murder your mind how difficult it truly is to not spin the ball, or minimize it.
I always threw a knuckleball by gripping the seam with my fingernails (which allowed me to get a better grip on the ball and not loose control during the delivery) but then I pushed my fingertips slightly forward at the release point (just a fraction of a centimeter). This negated any potential backspin that might have otherwise occurred because of my grip.
Very interesting. I have tried to minimize the spin on a baseball with this technique and I don't come close. It boggles my mind how it's even physically possible with a straight-forward arm-action.
assmane999 I was a knuckleball pitcher through little league and all the way through high school. I threw a pretty good one. I would grip the horse shoe seem with the tips of my first 3 fingers and rest my pinky on the side. I'd throw it straight overhand and at the point of the release, "push" the ball out of my hand by extending my fingers. It's definitely a pitch that relies on feel and finesse
@@blahblah8037 I was always big for my age. My hands were “man-size” by 9th grade and I never changed my grip throughout the rest of high school. Even now, at 28, I still grip and throw it the same way when playing catch or just messing around and still with the same results.
Thank yous for sharing.... Mr.Dickey, agreed Please say hello to everyone,especially Esposito. Great job on tutorial up close,teaching and learning it to separate things. Nice job on interview, seem just like a normal guy, easy to be friend with. Good job w/ camera's angle showing his good side lol, intern,assistant, and the man, like from,show me the money. Appreciate your time and effort plus teaching someone who may pass on the legacy one day as it has been passed onto you in someways. But practice was first, your hard work ,frustration with
Read more books. In 1933, 1833, 1733 and throughout about everything hundred twenty years society rounds up knowledge and Burns some of it off. It is imperative you use your library card, knowledge is the true currency. If a jock is high beaming your vernacular , you’ve got a serious deficit but you have the good sense to know it. I had the same sense, and I grew up homeless and couldn’t go to school. I spent most of my adult life reading. There is a reason language and knowledge is censored and people are dumbed down. Be well.
My dad taught me way before I even was thinking about pitching like just playing catch and throw it every once and awhile and I might just be biased but I’m not nearly amazed at these perfect knuckle balls from these mlb pitches I really think as a 13 year old I have the nastiest knuckle ball around
I swear I was the only guy who threw a knuckleball using my KNUCKLES. When I played third base I used to piss of the 1st baseman on easy outs by throwing knuckle balls and curve balls and the like. The KB was just plumb hilarious
Nope! I totally used to throw a "knuckleball" every now and then in little league game... I too used my knuckles... I dug my front 2-3 fingers down under the horseshoe to where my knuckles were up against the seam, and I would throw it like that... took me awhile to be able to just throw it without the damn ball flying out of my hand way too early in the release... I had to throw it SLOW or else it would escape my grip... well, it was prob more like an extreme change up/eephus, but I remember having SOME success with it... prob if anything because I wasn't trying to throw it like Nolan Ryan, so I was actually throwing it in the strike zone LOL.
+alexreising85 all right! It may not have been as pretty as throwing a fast ball by him but watching them fumble around trying to hit it was golden. I agree, it took forever to get it right and I practiced with a softball which was way easier
My son throws a knuckleball and a splitter- and the splitter he throws he throws the Kaizen school technique so his shoulder and elbow won’t explode. Everyone here bats r handed. I really suggest you teach your kids the splitter in this technique from Japan if you turn your wrist and change your arm angle it’s a curve ball -15 MPH your splitter. If you just keep your fingers taut on the seems it straightens out into a 4 seamer. Throwing knuckleballs at 9 year olds and 81 mph splitters seems mean, but this is America and we make Nolan Ryan’s here.
so hard to learn the knuckleball, I played little league softball for 2 years as a pitcher and tried throwing a knuckler, at first it was great I struck out the first 9 batters I faced on 27 pitches. Then after that I struggled. that combined with pressure from the team's catcher (who hated catching for me lol) I abandoned it. Kinda wish I stuck with it though.
All you need is two pitches, hell a fastball could be it. Its about location mixed with velocity if I can get a 90mph FB in and up you its gonna be a strike or an easy out. Location is key not number of pitches. As Bruce Lee said "I do not fear a man who has practices 1,000 kicks once, but the man who has practiced one kick 1,000 times."