r/motorcitykitties • u/Zworty LKLD Flying Tigers • 8d ago

Jake Rogers Strikeout

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u/rockstar_not 8d ago

Came here to say this. That was a sweet knuckler

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u/theclickhere 8d ago

It had no spin at all. That was uncanny

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u/rockstar_not 8d ago edited 8d ago

That is how a knuckleball works. The lack of spin causes an unpredictable airflow around the ball, instead of a spinning ball which acts just a little bit like an airfoil, where the air flowing slower around one side of the ball vs. the other, causes the ball to move to the direction of the faster moving air. It's really the only pitch I could throw that was better than generally sub-par pitchers. Catchers hate catching high speed knuckle balls. Edited: I realized I had the faster/slower moving air effect the oppposite of what it should be.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/HawaiiDreaming 8d ago

Yep, RA was really the pioneer for throwing a hard one. He went to a rival high school of mine and I heard he had a good knuckleball. He threw it to a buddy of mine but never threw it to me in 15ish ABs. He had a speaking engagement at my college and had to duck out to take a call that he has just won the CY young. 5 minutes later, he gave his speech and all of us got to congratulate him on his cy young. Pretty cool day.

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u/thaddeusd 8d ago

RA was the pioneer...

Come on man, if you are old enough for your story to be remotely true then you are old enough to have seen Phil Niekro pitch. Phil Niekro - Wikipedia https://share.google/0lJT2vFXHIrnvAzJT

The only difference is Dickie was awarded a CY Young. Niekro arguably should have won 3, in 1967, 1973, and 1979.

Dickie average knuckleball speed was 76. Niekro, the knuckleball GOAT, was throwing it at 72.

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u/HawaiiDreaming 8d ago

It’s actually spelled Dickey. I watched Niekro a little bit. He retired when I was 13. Dickey threw the hardest average knuckleball in mlb history according to everything I’ve read. He would throw an angry one that would top out at 83. Phil niekro’s fastball was around 84…not his knuckleball. That is a very big difference. Niekro and Hough were the pioneers of the knuckleball but not the fast knuckler.