Knuckler by Tim Wakefield

not compare.
    Had Wakefield been able to hit some home runs despite a low bat
ting average, the Pirates might have seen value in his talents. There was always latitude for a power hitter—who might grow in plate discipline and contact—because, quite simply, power cannot be taught. Nevertheless, the early signs were beyond discouraging—and for obvious reasons. If Tim Wakefield could not hit the pitching at Watertown, he certainly would not be able to hit the pitching in Boston, Chicago, New York, or Los Angeles—not now, not ever. A few months at Watertown hardly qualified as a final verdict on Wakefield's abilities, but it was an indication that he had farther to travel than anyone might have guessed.
    Wakefield returned home for the winter disappointed by his first professional season, and neither his performance nor his prognosis improved the following spring. He went back to Bradenton in February, when the Pirates began minor league camp, and he failed to make
any
of the club's affiliates out of spring training. He was caught in the netherworld between the lowest levels of minor league baseball and the highest level of amateur play, a no-man's-land that sends the large majority of aspiring professional baseball players off to lives filled with bar stools, beer taps, gas stations, mail rooms, public works, and office jobs. Wakefield was effectively relegated to the
practice squad
of professional baseball—Bradenton served as the "Land of Misfit Toys" for those struggling minor leaguers who were waiting for someone, somewhere, to suffer from an injury or extended failure.
    For many of the players in extended spring training, the days could be a torturous exercise in frustration. There was the time before and after baseball, and then there was the time during. Wakefield was among those players who anxiously showed up at camp, put on their uniforms, and took the field not knowing how many more days they would be asked back. After the workouts, they got out of uniform and left with the same concerns. In between, Wakefield worked out and played in loosely structured games against players in other organizations living the same existence, the time they spent on the field often remaining as enjoyable as it had ever been. The baseball was fun. Baseball was the reason they were there. Baseball was why they lined up and tossed the ball back and forth to one another, throwing curveballs and screwballs
and, yes, knuckleballs, while wondering how much longer they would be asked to participate.
    Daily, Tim Wakefield was among those who wondered.
    He had little idea or understanding that the key to success was already in his possession, like the ability to play a guitar, and that it only needed to be unlocked, nurtured, and harvested.

Four
They say you don't want to have a knuckleballer pitching for you or against you.
    â€”Longtime Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda
    B ACK IN M ELBOURNE , often at dusk, Steve Wakefield brought out the knuckleball with the intention of driving Tim Wakefield back into the house. But in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization during the late spring and summer of 1989, the knuckleball, as it turned out, was all that prevented Tim Wakefield from being sent home.
    Wakefield was among the Pirates lined up on the field before an extended-spring game that year, playing catch with outfielder Jon Martin, who had been selected in the 10th round, two rounds after Wakefield, in the June 1988 draft. Like Wakefield, Martin had failed to make a team out of spring training. The scene was hardly anything out of the ordinary, just two struggling young players loosening up before a game scheduled to be played within a matter of hours. Wakefield tossed the occasional knuckleball to his teammate purely to alter the routine, to have a little fun, to laugh at his slightly younger teammate—Martin was 20, Wakefield 22—struggling to catch a pitch that darted about like a butterfly.
    Unbeknownst