Word: niekro
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Brothers Niekro throw the most difficult pitch to control. Once the ball leaves the hand, no one, not even the man on the mound, knows where it will end up. Gripped with the fingertips and, unlike every other pitch, thrown with a completely stiff wrist, the ball should not spin. A revolving ball slices through the air; a spinless knuckleball floats free in the breeze, its trajectory altered by every passing zephyr. A gale wind in Candlestick Park or, it would seem at times, a cough from a fan in the front row of the Astrodome can change its course...
...season without injury: last month Braves Catcher Bruce Benedict dislocated a finger pursuing one of Phil's pitches and Houston's Alan Ashby is now out of the lineup with a finger fractured by one of Joe's floaters. Ashby's catching technique when Niekro is on the mound: "You just get in front of the ball and pray. It's like trying to catch a falling piece of paper...
With the Astros, Joe Niekro performs a superstitious pitching-day ritual that is bizarre even by baseball standards. Decked out in the same Levi's and black-and-white shirt, he stops on his way to the park for a cup of coffee with a friend. He insists on draping a towel around the neck of Pitching Coach Mel Wright. And then, when his team is at bat, he sits on the same towel on the same spot in the dugout...
...Niekro and the Astros will need all the luck they can get trying to beat out the Reds for the division title. One of the weakest hitting teams in baseball (team average: .253), the Astros have scored only slightly more runs than their opponents (504 to 496), while the Reds, for example, have scored 90 more runs than the opposition. The Astros win with good defense and brilliant pitching. J.R. Richard, at 6 ft. 8 in. almost as intimidating as his fastball, has won 16 games and lost 12; Relief Pitcher Joe Sambito has one of the best earned...
Atlanta's Phil Niekro, who helped his brother master the knuckler, now watches his success with wistful pleasure: "It's great that we're both having good years, but I'd like to play on a contending club, feel what it's like to go into a clubhouse every day and know you're going to be in the thick of a pennant race." The experience, Joe says, is so good it's almost like the old days in the backyard. "Pitching for me now," says Joe Niekro, "is just like going...