The Knuckleball Club

The Extraordinary Men Who Mastered Baseball's Most Difficult Pitch

Richard A. Johnson (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

320 Seiten

2016
Rowman & Littlefield (Verlag)
978-1-4422-6169-3 (ISBN)

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The knuckleball—an unusual pitch that few can master—has been a part of major league baseball since the early 1900s, and continues to be used to this day. This book is a detailed account of the best knuckleball pitchers in the history of baseball, including Hoyt Wilhelm, Phil Niekro, Dutch Leonard, Jim Bouton, Tim Wakefield, and R.A. Dickey.

The knuckleball—so difficult to hit but also difficult to control and catch—has been a part of major league baseball since the early 1900s and continues to be used to this day. This remarkable and unusual pitch is the instrument of a special breed of pitcher, a determined athlete possessing tremendous concentration, self confidence, and a willingness to weather all kinds of adversity.

In The Knuckleball Club: The Extraordinary Men Who Mastered Baseball's Most Difficult Pitch, Richard A. Johnson provides an informal history of the wildest, weirdest, most mesmerizing pitch of all time. Beginning with an examination of the invention of the knuckleball, Johnson then briefly touches upon the science and psychology of the pitch before profiling the game’s great knuckleballers. Rich in anecdotes and interviews, this book shares the unique stories of Hoyt Wilhelm, Phil Niekro, Jim Bouton, Tom Candiotti, Tim Wakefield, R.A. Dickey, and many others. Also featured are the stories of the best knuckleball catchers, from Bob Uecker and Doug Mirabelli to Rick Ferrell and Paul Richards.

While knuckleballers today are an anomaly, decades ago a surprisingly large number of major league pitchers used the knuckler. The Knuckleball Club is the first book to provide a comprehensive survey of the pitch and the players who used it, offering a deep understanding of how the knuckleball has fit into the fabric of the game over the past one hundred years. Anyone wanting to learn more about this unusual pitch, from baseball historians and fans to current and former players, will find this book an entertaining and enlightening read.

Richard A. Johnson is Print Editor of Automotive News, the world’s largest auto industry business publication. He has written feature articles for several magazines, including American Heritage, Golf Magazine, and Psychology Today, and is the author of two books, American Fads and Six Men Who Built the Modern Auto Industry.

Preface
Chapter 1: Bug-Tossers
Chapter 2: An Eerie Sort of Fooler
Chapter 3: A Baseball in “Crisis”
Chapter 4: Eddie Rommel: “Put Something on the Ball, You Ham!”
Chapter 5: The Dutchman: “He Might Be a Salesman or a Farmer or a Mechanic”
Chapter 6: Wend It Like Wilhelm
Chapter 7: “Geez, Geez”: Wilhelm’s No-Hitter
Chapter 8: “Sometimes I Thought I’d Never Make It”
Chapter 9: The Family Heirloom
Chapter 10: Wilbur Wonderful
Chapter 11: “From Now on I’m Throwing a Knuckleball”
Chapter 12: “You Wouldn’t Notice If a Bomb Hit”
Chapter 13: Knuckleballers in Abundance
Chapter 14: Knotorious Knuckleballs
Chapter 15: Two Bulldogs
Chapter 16: “We Did It”
Chapter 17: The Knuckleball Club
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

Erscheinungsdatum	24.06.2016
Verlagsort	Lanham, MD
Sprache	englisch
Maße	159 x 235 mm
Gewicht	617 g
Themenwelt	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Sport ► Ballsport
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Kulturgeschichte
	Weitere Fachgebiete ► Sportwissenschaft
ISBN-10	1-4422-6169-2 / 1442261692
ISBN-13	978-1-4422-6169-3 / 9781442261693
Zustand	Neuware