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Niekro one of Hall of Fame's great ambassadors - MLB All three fingers. Niekro was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1997. He ended up winning 318 games and is fourth on the career innings list. Teams look for pitchers to throw harder, so teams shift their focus on pitch type and more about pitch speed. The knuckleball is radically different from any other pitch in a pitcher's arsenal, being less predictable and difficult to control. You can pitch seven good innings with a knuckleball, and as soon as you walk a guy they go, 'See, there's that damn knuckleball.'" Thanks to a league-best 5.3 runs per game of offensive support, he posted a gaudy 17-4 record and made his fourth All-Star team, but his ERA was an unremarkable 3.61 (104 ERA+), and he completed just four out of his 35 starts due to a quicker hook by Torre and Gibson, his pitching coach. Elsewhere in the piece, Blount presciently suggested that because knuckleballs seem to suspend the natural aging process in the arm, Niekro might stick around to an even later age than his 46-year-old knuckleballing teammate, reliever Hoyt Wilhelm. The origins of the knuckleball are unclear. Big leaguers are always looking for ways to stay relevant in the game. He ended up winning 318 games and is fourth on the career innings list.CreditGray Mortimore/Getty Images. Steven Wrights Hot Streak and The Importance of Mobility, Knuckleball Grip, Part 3: Depth of the Baseball. Philip Henry Niekro was born in Blaine, Ohio, and learned the knuckleball from his father, who played for a coal-mining team in eastern Ohio. When you first go in, you see all these people and you dont think in those terms: When is this person going to leave this earth? This year was a real tough one.. This is due to both the knuckleball's low average speed and its erratic movement, which force the catcher to keep focusing on the ball even after the runners start stealing their next bases. Tim Wakefield argues that "The problem is that [baseball] is so radar gun-oriented." Nobody likes to warm up with you."