AccessMyLibrary provides FREE access to over 30 million articles from top publications available through your library.
Create a link to this page
Copy and paste this link tag into your Web page or blog:
The ups and downs of a wild pitch
I can't imagine throwing a knuckleball, but a teammate of mine, Steve Sparks, lives and dies by it. Sparky and Tim Wakefield are the two big league pitchers who throw primarily knucklers.
Sparky is a great story and a good pitcher for us. He has been very effective, and if I hadn't blown two of his wins, he probably would be an All-Star.
Last year, he came up as a reliever and spot starter and ended up doing an awesome job.
Sparky has been through a lot. Because of his knuckleball, he sometimes has trouble finding a job. It seems like he finds himself fighting for a spot in spring training but always finds himself there at the end.
His story began a few years ago in the Brewers' system. He was on a three-year plan: 20 percent knuckleballs the first year, 50 percent the next and 70 percent the third year.
He found it too tough to go back and forth between his regular delivery and his knuckleball delivery. So after he got to winter ball, he decided he was going to live or die by it. That was when his knuckleball took off.