One of my coaches in Little League threw a mean knuckleball. After each practice, the whole team would line up and try to hit one off of him. Free hotdog on gameday for anyone who could. I was the only one to ever hit a couple. Blind luck each time. Best hotdogs I ever had.
@@k-ninja During the summer after 6th grade, so yeah, I was that age. I turned 12 that summer. I'd like to brag and say it was skill, but like I said, it was pretty much blind luck. One hit was a line drive that nearly took the pitching coach's head off and the other was a pop fly to left field. Just summer memories from childhood that stick with you as you grow up, you know? Great times.
"The way to catch a knuckleball is to wait until the ball stops rolling and then to pick it up" -Bob Uecker, long time Brewers broadcaster and catcher for Phil Niekro, the only knuckleballer in the HOF.
I love watching pitchers throw knuckleballs and the batters reaction to said pitch. It was good to see Matt Waldron using them against the A’s last night! ❤️
The fellow who asserts that one can throw (NOT PUSH) a knuckleball from any arm angle is 100 % correct. Many years ago, my son was a sidearm knuckleballer in LITTLE LEAGUE, and he threw a damn good one, i.e., almost spinless and "heavy". I taught him the pitch, so he and I tossed mostly knucklers when we were "having a catch". His change- up was a four- seam fastball which he threw quite hard, i.e., a "mitt popper". Because, like the Niekro brothers', Dad, I encouraged my son to develop his pitch control by having him adhere to a practice regimen of grasping a baseball only two (2) ways, and in an alternating pattern: knuckleball, across the seams; knuckleball, across the seams... With one exception (a real knucklehead), a coach who insisted I was ruining my son's right arm by permitting him to pitch sidearm, the other coaches and managers did not attempt to alter my son's angle of hurling, because they understood that a natural sidearm delivery placed far less stress on one's arm and shoulder (rotator cuff). My son's moniker was "Whip". I can still hear opposing coaches and managers shouting at umpires, complaining vehemently about a Little Leaguer hurling the floater, the "butterfly with hiccups ", as Willie Stargell described it. Needless to say, only a handful of my son's teammates were willing to squat behind the dish when my son pitched. But, surprisingly, several of the team's better fielders became adept at blocking the knucklers they could not catch. Those few boys were fearless; I admired them for their willingness to be my son's receivers. I had to stop being my son's practice catcher when he became seventeen, because I simply could no longer handle his "stuff". For a couple of years prior to my becoming unable to cope with his "stuff", I had worn -- thank goodness-- a mask. I vividly recall the afternoon I caught my last pitch from him. His pitch, a HARD KNUCKLEBALL, struck me right in the navel. I sank to my knees as though I was praying. My son tossed his glove aside, then ran to me. "Dad, Dad, are you all right?" From behind the catcher's mask, my teeth clenched, "I said, "No problem. No problem." As I arose, I proudly informed my son that he had just hurled a fantastic knuckleball. Then I informed him, sadly, that his "stuff" had become too much for the old man to handle, and that from then on we could have only soft tosses. Knuckleballs, of course...
3 types of personalities i see when reading comments: 15yr old in study hall on his phone 33 yr old cubicle dad of 2 65yr old retiree discovering youtube for the first time but they are all guys. Every time.
I used to love throwing a knuckle ball back in H.S. No one ever really throws them, or bats against them. I remember so many times I threw a perfect strike and the umpire would call it a ball.
They're the best pitch to learn and imo it's irresponsible to teach highschool kids to throw overpowering fastballs on every pitch. The knuckleball puts much less stress on the arm with each motion.
Great comment! If I were a hitter, I would not swing at a knuckleball until there were two strikes on me. Even when the pitch is in the strike zone, , an umpire will often call it a ball because it is so hard for a catcher to make it look like a strike.
@@811chelseafc The Stats don't tell the usefulness of a knuckleballer. They will never have the beautiful stats of a traditional pitcher. A smart manager uses them to get a few more wins a season that pitcher fatigue would have lost. Since they don't need a lot of rest you can plug them into a variety of situations. Tim Wakefield was not just a starter. He pitched relief, closed and was able to be a versatile tool in Boston's pitching staff. Should you ever have more than one knuckleballer on a team? No. But there is a lot of value to having one if you know how to effectively use them.
@@811chelseafc”the knuckleball is a gimmick” (word for word right from your first comment). “I never said the knuckleball was a gimmick”. You slow or something?
Alguien más noto que le queda perfectamente la canción con el vídeo? Definitivamente está canción se debería llamar nuckleball ya que le queda perfectamente al lanzamiento tal vez a muchos no le guste pero le queda un poco bien
In 8th grade I was the big power hitter on my town's team. During an at bat one day a neighboring town's pitcher threw a ball that I had never seen before. From my perspective it stopped and did a looptyloop before continuing to the plate. I thought "how weird" and then for some reason I couldn't stop myself from swinging. STRIKE THREE! I wasn't even mad as I went back to the dugout, just bemused and confused.
A kid on my middle school team had a knuckleball. He threw like mid 70s only I’m guessing, but he got a lot of kids with the knuckleball, so he was one of our best pitchers.
I remember playing little league as a kid and one of the parents was a ball player, assuming college, no idea. Anyway I was playing catch with him and he threw a knuckleball and I was so mesmerized by how it looked I stared at it until it hit my head. The dude looked concerned, I didn't even care I thought it was amazing.
I used to love throwing curves, knuckle balls, and holding a wiffle ball on the opposite side it would go the opposite direction. We used to play a lot when I was younger, great times!
@@kobeready9698 wrong. thats the beauty of the knuckleball. you throw it normally, but as you start to release, extend the index and middle fingers to stop the spin. otherwise its really obvious when you throw the pitch
The real reason is that the arm slot from which you throw the knuckleball is meant solely for the knuckleball, which sacrifices velocity on other pitches. Otherwise, every pitch that wasn’t a knuckleball would be tipped by the pitcher having a different arm slot. Also they don’t throw their fastball as often, so they have no need to throw it 90+ if 80 can sneak if by a batter caught off guard.
I love that Dan Quisenberry was included in this compilation. More known for his submarine delivery he could deliver some wicked pitches literally scraping knuckles on the ground.
I recall a Joe Pepitone (Cubs)Home-run off, after being advised by the coach, to move UP in the batter's box, and maybe get the ball before it breaks. The ball sailed into the teeth of strong incoming wind , into the right field bleachers. The crowd went crazy, as it broke a scoring deadlock, and the cubs went on to win. I have never seen a batter yet invoke that strategy. Comments welcome.
This video could've been so much better. Just watching the knuckleball itself is magic, but how much better this could've been if they had given us names, at least. Even better would've been an indication of the line of the pitch if it had not deviated from normal, just as you see on some TV broadcasts to better show the effect of a breaking ball. And YES! Can that screwy music. This is strictly a minor league effort.
Err as a Blighty meself dare I ask all of you professionals out there what exactly is a knuckleball? Have noticed the bloke Chucking has some dodgy grip but part from that don’t see owt why so special?
Rest in peace to a knuckleball legend, Tim Wakefield
This is how I found out
@@laartwork Me too! ☹
❤❤❤
One of my coaches in Little League threw a mean knuckleball. After each practice, the whole team would line up and try to hit one off of him. Free hotdog on gameday for anyone who could. I was the only one to ever hit a couple. Blind luck each time. Best hotdogs I ever had.
Flavor of victory
Hitting a knuckleball at I’m guessing 12 or 11 is crazy
@@k-ninja During the summer after 6th grade, so yeah, I was that age. I turned 12 that summer. I'd like to brag and say it was skill, but like I said, it was pretty much blind luck. One hit was a line drive that nearly took the pitching coach's head off and the other was a pop fly to left field. Just summer memories from childhood that stick with you as you grow up, you know? Great times.
Ur coach glizzed u up after u ripped his knucky ball? Ur rizz is fire broski. Stay glizzied up 4ever skiddibibo❤
Knuckleball = A hard pitch to throw, a hard pitch to hit and a hard pitch to catch.
"The way to catch a knuckleball is to wait until the ball stops rolling and then to pick it up"
-Bob Uecker, long time Brewers broadcaster and catcher for Phil Niekro, the only knuckleballer in the HOF.
And hard to call
It's either the hardest or easiest pitch to hit depending on wind
I love watching pitchers throw knuckleballs and the batters reaction to said pitch. It was good to see Matt Waldron using them against the A’s last night! ❤️
I need to bust out my glove and find someone to catch for me and record some. I haven’t threw one for probably 10+ years lol.
@@bfry38That’d be nice; it has been a long time for me, too! Not to mention it’s great exercise!
@@cheearraesquerra Definitely, when it warms up here in the summer. I’ll see what I can do :)
I enjoy watching catcher reaction to those even more. They look confused
Whether you watch baseball or soccer, you love seeing a good knuckleball
I think Volleyball also has some gnarly ones
the music ruins it
Agreed. If they played that music in the stadium, the fans and the players would all exit.
The fellow who asserts that one can throw (NOT PUSH) a knuckleball from any arm angle is 100 % correct. Many years ago, my son was a sidearm knuckleballer in LITTLE LEAGUE, and he threw a damn good one, i.e., almost spinless and "heavy". I taught him the pitch, so he and I tossed mostly knucklers when we were "having a catch". His change- up was a four- seam fastball which he threw quite hard, i.e., a "mitt popper". Because, like the Niekro brothers', Dad, I encouraged my son to develop his pitch control by having him adhere to a practice regimen of grasping a baseball only two (2) ways, and in an alternating pattern: knuckleball, across the seams; knuckleball, across the seams... With one exception (a real knucklehead), a coach who insisted I was ruining my son's right arm by permitting him to pitch sidearm, the other coaches and managers did not attempt to alter my son's angle of hurling, because they understood that a natural sidearm delivery placed far less stress on one's arm and shoulder (rotator cuff). My son's moniker was "Whip". I can still hear opposing coaches and managers shouting at umpires, complaining vehemently about a Little Leaguer hurling the floater, the "butterfly with hiccups ", as Willie Stargell described it. Needless to say, only a handful of my son's teammates were willing to squat behind the dish when my son pitched. But, surprisingly, several of the team's better fielders became adept at blocking the knucklers they could not catch. Those few boys were fearless; I admired them for their willingness to be my son's receivers. I had to stop being my son's practice catcher when he became seventeen, because I simply could no longer handle his "stuff". For a couple of years prior to my becoming unable to cope with his "stuff", I had worn -- thank goodness-- a mask. I vividly recall the afternoon I caught my last pitch from him. His pitch, a HARD KNUCKLEBALL, struck me right in the navel. I sank to my knees as though I was praying. My son tossed his glove aside, then ran to me. "Dad, Dad, are you all right?" From behind the catcher's mask, my teeth clenched, "I said, "No problem. No problem." As I arose, I proudly informed my son that he had just hurled a fantastic knuckleball. Then I informed him, sadly, that his "stuff" had become too much for the old man to handle, and that from then on we could have only soft tosses. Knuckleballs, of course...
@@jeffj2495fuck em
its been 5 years did you figure out how to mute a video?
😂😂😂
First time my dad showed me what a knuckle ball was while we were playing catch and thing hit me right in the face
3 types of personalities i see when reading comments:
15yr old in study hall on his phone
33 yr old cubicle dad of 2
65yr old retiree discovering youtube for the first time
but they are all guys. Every time.
I used to love throwing a knuckle ball back in H.S. No one ever really throws them, or bats against them. I remember so many times I threw a perfect strike and the umpire would call it a ball.
bad luck bro
@@williammoran8451 If it wasn’t for bad luck I wouldn’t have any luck lol
They're the best pitch to learn and imo it's irresponsible to teach highschool kids to throw overpowering fastballs on every pitch. The knuckleball puts much less stress on the arm with each motion.
@@renasworldofgaming Amen on that!
Great comment! If I were a hitter, I would not swing at a knuckleball until there were two strikes on me. Even when the pitch is in the strike zone, , an umpire will often call it a ball because it is so hard for a catcher to make it look like a strike.
ABSOLUTELY AMAZING...WAY TOO MUCH FUN TO WATCH....WHAT A TREAT..!!!!
Funny stuff. Couldn't stop laughing. It's gotta hurt if you don't connect.
I was laughing and had a permanent grin from ear to ear during the whole video. Knucklers made everyone including their own catchers, look like fools.
Chris Davis looks the same on any type of pitch
The redsox have had some great knuckleballers. First Wakefield now Wright
Tim Wakefield is so disgustingly overrated. His career is a testament to the theory that the knuckleball is a gimmick.
@@811chelseafc The knuckleball may be gimmick, but if you can get batters out with it, who cares?
Eldred Brown I never said it was a gimmick. I said Tim Wakefield’s career can be used as evidence for those who do.
@@811chelseafc The Stats don't tell the usefulness of a knuckleballer. They will never have the beautiful stats of a traditional pitcher. A smart manager uses them to get a few more wins a season that pitcher fatigue would have lost. Since they don't need a lot of rest you can plug them into a variety of situations. Tim Wakefield was not just a starter. He pitched relief, closed and was able to be a versatile tool in Boston's pitching staff. Should you ever have more than one knuckleballer on a team? No. But there is a lot of value to having one if you know how to effectively use them.
@@811chelseafc”the knuckleball is a gimmick” (word for word right from your first comment). “I never said the knuckleball was a gimmick”. You slow or something?
What's the spin rate?
Three.
0:31 absolutely FILTHY!
Alguien más noto que le queda perfectamente la canción con el vídeo? Definitivamente está canción se debería llamar nuckleball ya que le queda perfectamente al lanzamiento tal vez a muchos no le guste pero le queda un poco bien
Good luck catching those things!
You know your good when the catcher misses the ball
Last one was actually absurd lol
Please do without the crappy music
Cry
@@Rid_Of_Thee dont you dare tell him to cry tough man
hes right terrible music
whatcha gonna do about it
Watching without sound was better. That was pure filthy.
God bless Tim Wakefield
In 8th grade I was the big power hitter on my town's team. During an at bat one day a neighboring town's pitcher threw a ball that I had never seen before. From my perspective it stopped and did a looptyloop before continuing to the plate. I thought "how weird" and then for some reason I couldn't stop myself from swinging. STRIKE THREE! I wasn't even mad as I went back to the dugout, just bemused and confused.
A kid on my middle school team had a knuckleball. He threw like mid 70s only I’m guessing, but he got a lot of kids with the knuckleball, so he was one of our best pitchers.
In middle school, I hope he was slower. I doubt I can throw a fastball mid-seventies now.
Little league World Series record is 86.
Mid 70's knuckler in middle school??!! That's nuts. Kid must have ate, slept, and breathed baseball.
That first one no one in the stadium knew where it was going.
When the catcher is missing the ball you know it's a crazy pitch
I remember playing little league as a kid and one of the parents was a ball player, assuming college, no idea. Anyway I was playing catch with him and he threw a knuckleball and I was so mesmerized by how it looked I stared at it until it hit my head. The dude looked concerned, I didn't even care I thought it was amazing.
0:28 catcher did a great job
the movement on some of those is diabolical, it's like a wiffle ball
I used to love throwing curves, knuckle balls, and holding a wiffle ball on the opposite side it would go the opposite direction. We used to play a lot when I was younger, great times!
0:31 epic scene
Awesome stuff! Great job
Dickey's reaction at 0:39 :)
Song name?
Phil Neikro threw a no hitter with that weird thing.
Good luck just CATCHING ONE!
How come most knuckleball pitchers have very low fastball velocity!??
Calebe the beast it is the reason why they are knuckleballers. They cannot survive in conventional style as their stuffs aren’t good enough.
When you throw a knuckleball, you are not so much as throwing but pushing it to stop the spin
@@kobeready9698 wrong. thats the beauty of the knuckleball. you throw it normally, but as you start to release, extend the index and middle fingers to stop the spin. otherwise its really obvious when you throw the pitch
The real reason is that the arm slot from which you throw the knuckleball is meant solely for the knuckleball, which sacrifices velocity on other pitches. Otherwise, every pitch that wasn’t a knuckleball would be tipped by the pitcher having a different arm slot. Also they don’t throw their fastball as often, so they have no need to throw it 90+ if 80 can sneak if by a batter caught off guard.
Evan Mulcahey weird flex but okay
Magnificent
Hellz wit da 🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵❓️
Did anyone use this as their secondary pitch?
Rest in peace wake
I love that Dan Quisenberry was included in this compilation. More known for his submarine delivery he could deliver some wicked pitches literally scraping knuckles on the ground.
Quisenberry was not in this video
NASTY!
0:32
I recall a Joe Pepitone (Cubs)Home-run off, after being advised by the coach, to move UP in the batter's box, and maybe get the ball before it breaks. The ball sailed into the teeth of strong incoming wind , into the right field bleachers. The crowd went crazy, as it broke a scoring deadlock, and the cubs went on to win. I have never seen a batter yet invoke that strategy. Comments welcome.
haha the catchers can't even handle them
More like good luck catching these knuckleballs.
Such a weird pitch. Instead of adding "weight" to the ball with spin, it's like "lightening" the ball by almost completely eliminating spin.
The music tho😢
All Summer Long
Too many vids have incredibly annoying music to them. Just a hint.
Yep
How is one suppose to hit a pitch that the catcher can’t even catch? And the catcher knows it’s coming.
My knuckleball is propably 5 miles per hour and my fastball is about 45 to46
A lot of those look like sinkers... Just saying.
Many were, quisenberry’s was most likely a sinker but loved seeing him nonetheless
This video could've been so much better. Just watching the knuckleball itself is magic, but how much better this could've been if they had given us names, at least. Even better would've been an indication of the line of the pitch if it had not deviated from normal, just as you see on some TV broadcasts to better show the effect of a breaking ball. And YES! Can that screwy music. This is strictly a minor league effort.
the show must go on
poor batters…what do you do? Close your eyes & swing hard! Just dont look bc your chances of hitting it goes down.
Conn Mission
Witchcraft.
those are easy to throw
*MUTE
No need for Tommy John surgery with these guys and pitch counts don't matter either.
😅
This wacking off music
Show the one Wakefield threw to Boone 😂
My absolute favorite.
The soundtrack though 😢. This music is awful 😔
Worst background music ever.
ohtani better !
Pretty sure he doesn’t have a knuckleball.
Err as a Blighty meself dare I ask all of you professionals out there what exactly is a knuckleball? Have noticed the bloke Chucking has some dodgy grip but part from that don’t see owt why so special?
My favorite pitch
Baseball knuckleballs > soccer "knuckleballs" 🥱🥱🥱
Ik soccer knuckle balls is just a slider