Guard your grill, knuckle up. I ain’t the type to give up. Guard your grill, knuckle up. Put ‘em up, you ain’t tough. Guard your grill, knuckle up! -Naughty By Nature
PJust a quickie today. Real busy today. Big stuff to do. Important stuff. But I had to do this first. Was gonna write about Brandon Webb today. But then I saw Tim Wakefield pitch a gem of a ballgame last night. I wasn’t around when Lew “Hicks” Moren invented it. I never saw Hoyt Wilhelm. I barely remember Phil Niekro and Charlie Hough. Wilbur Wood is from my hometown but he was before my time. I’ve seen Tim Wakefield though. I’ve seen Tim Wakefield pitch for a lot of innings. A plethora of innings. A gaggle of innings. A slew of innings. Twelve years worth of innings. Twelve years worth of knuckleballs.
I saw him allow only three runs in thirteen innings against the Yankees in the 2003 ALCS. I saw him in Game Five of the 2004 ACLS. Game Five, where Wakefield was the winning pitcher in a fourteen inning thriller. You know it’s thriller, thriller night. You’re fighting for your life inside a killer, thriller. Fought for his life throwing three shutout innings. I saw eight more innings of him last night. Eight beautiful innings. Now on some nights, he’s merely pedestrian. Other nights, he’s downright hittable. But on some nights, some nights, when all the planets are aligned just so, on those nights, those nights when the knuckleball is knuckling just right, Tim Wakefield is truly something to behold. Last night was one of those nights.
His knuckleball was the knuckliest. Knucklicious. Mesmerizing. Tantalizing. Captivating. Devastating. Last night, Knuckleballer Tim Wakefield dominated the Devil Rays. They never stood a chance. Tim Wakefield’s knuckler was moving. It was grooving. Something to proving. Wakefield took a No-No Nanette into the seventh. Carl Crawford broke it up but Timmy left him stranded at third to preserve the shutout. The shutout and the victory. The six strikeout shutout and victory. Yup, six baffling, bewildering, befuddling strikeouts. You think that’s easy? Willie Stargell doesn’t: “Throwing a knuckleball for a strike is like throwing a butterfly with hiccups across the street into your neighbor’s mailbox.” And that my friends is what Tim Wakefield did last night. He threw a butterfly with hiccups across the street into your neighbor’s mailbox. All night. And not a moment too soon. The Red Sox had lost four of their previous six games. They needed this one. They got it. Thanks to Mr. Tim Wakefield. The unsung hero of this ballclub. Roll Sox roll!
Peace out homies. Six Two and Even!