2017 Phil Niekro Clinic a Success!
Phil Niekro signing autographs for young knuckleballers at the Atlanta Clinic in January of 2017 Last weekend, I had the privelage of flying from my home in Los Angeles to Atlanta to work with 10 knuckleballers. They flew in from as far away as New York, North Carolina, Alabama and Texas. And they were all […]
Do You Have What It Takes? Do You Have The Stuff?
Be prepared to change your body and mind to become the best The question I am most asked is, “How do you release the knuckleball?” I tell them the usual answer — the knuckleball has less to do with the release and more to do with mechanics than you think. I could tell you how […]
Knuckleball Grip, Part 3: Depth of the Baseball
Phil Niekro’s tight, deep grip As I stated in the previous post about grips, there is one overriding rule to a great knuckleball grip — remove as many variable as possible to put yourself into position to have a chance of killing the spin entirely. That means using two fingertips to throw the ball instead […]
Steven Wright’s Hot Streak and The Importance of Mobility
Mid-pitch, you can really see Steven Wright’s thoracic mobility Steven Wright of the Red Sox has been on an absolute tear this season, emerging at the Sox most consistent pitcher. And that’s saying a lot considering the team’s payroll and superstar pitchers like David Price, Clay Buccholz and Rick Porcello. Wright’s dominant streak this season […]
Nobody Hits It; an article about Hoyt Wilhelm’s knuckler in a 1959 Sports Illustrated
Nobody Hits It; an article about Hoyt Wilhelm’s knuckler in a 1959 Sports Illustrated Hoyt Wilhelm shows how to throw his knuckleball in this 1959 Sports Illustrated By Roy Terrell One of the pitching sensations of the 1959 major league season is a 35-year-old cotton farmer from North Carolina who throws a baseball for the […]
1959 Scientific Expose on the Knuckler from Sports Illustrated
Scientific Expose The flow of air around a moving baseball knuckler is always fairly irregular. This is because a baseball is a blunt object, as opposed to a streamlined object such as an airplane wing, and the air through which is passes must do quite a bit of hurrying to get out of the way. […]
The Importance of Mentality to a Knuckle Ball Pitcher
It hit me like a freight train. My first professional appearance took place in Lincoln, Nebraska, for the Lincoln Saltdogs. And mind you, I had never really played baseball before. I didn’t play in high school and I only played sparingly on a club team in college. But lets rewind this story a little bit […]
Knuckleball Grips, Part 2
Phil Niekro showing his grip at the Baseball Hall of Fame As I discussed earlier, there are a few different ways to grip the knuckleball. And if you can throw a ball without any spin at 65-plus miles-per-hour, than you’ve got a great knuckleball grip. But there are overwhelming similarities between the grips of the […]
Knuckleball Grips, Part 1
The foundation of any great knuckleball is the grip, but there is a lot of confusion out there about proper knuckleball grips. Now, I say knuckleball grips because there is more than one way to hold a knuckleball, mainly because all of our hands are unique. But that doesn’t mean that you can hold the […]
Nationwide Knuckle Ball Camps
This is the first year that I have really gone out and traveled the country putting on camps. Knuckleball Nation has been seen in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Georgia, Florida, Texas, Nevada, Arizona and California. And I hope this is just the beginning. I’ve hit the road for a few very important reasons. This whole small business […]