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With: Tim Wakefield, R.A. Dickey, Phil Niekro, Charlie Hough, Jim Bouton, Wilbur Wood, Tom Candiotti, Terry Collins, Joe Torre, Terry Francona, Jim Leyland, Jason Varitek, Doug Mirabelli, Josh Thole, Gary Sheffield, Carlos Beltran
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Written by: n/a
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Directed by: Ricki Stern, Anne Sundberg
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MPAA Rating: NR
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Running Time: 93
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Date: 09/20/2012
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Pitcher Show
By Jeffrey M. Anderson
Another great baseball documentary to help set the mood for the current season, Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg's Knuckleball! explores the nuances, and the players, behind that widely misunderstood pitch. Launched with the fingertips, and without spin, a knuckleball is generally a good deal slower than a fastball and is almost totally unpredictable; it can break more than once, and it can wobble according to air currents. Sometimes the pitch doesn't work, but when it does, it works beautifully. Plus, because it requires less wear-and-tear on the arm, knuckleballers can play longer, and they tend to get better and better.
Managers and fans generally don't trust or respect the pitch, and it's an uphill battle for the guys that choose it for their arsenal. During the filming of this documentary, only two fully-committed knuckleball pitchers were playing in the major leagues: Tim Wakefield of the Boston Red Sox, and R.A. Dickey of the New York Mets. (Wakefield retired in 2012 after achieving 200 wins, placing himself in the company of Cy Young and Roger Clemens.) The movie paints Wakefield and Dickey as misunderstood outsiders, and puts them in a kind of members-only club with history's other knuckleballers; it's easy to get behind them as they struggle to be accepted, even by their own teammates.
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