How to Throw a Knuckle Ball Pitch

Video Transcript

"Okay, so the next pitch we are going to go to is now the famous knuckle ball. The Phil Niekro, the Mr. Wakefield knuckle ball. The premise of this is basically to try to get a dead spin through the air and it can vary. So some will get a little bit of top spin or side spin on the ball but it's preferred to try to get a little bit of a dead spin or like a no spin so when the ball goes through the air it's basically what the wind current is that day or how you can control it with finger pressure is going to steer the ball where you want it. Two different ways to throw it and I think this all depends on finger, you know, back on size of hand, that kind type of thing. What my preference is and what works for me is that I put my fingers, and I use my finger tips. Other people use their knuckles. Basically that is how I was shown at first but my hands just were not big enough so I went to my finger tips or almost my nails. So what I did here is I put my fingers on the kind of the back side of the two seam, just in the front and why I do that is when I release my fingers recatch the lace and bring it back out into a dead spin. Now obviously it doesn't work all of the time. For me it's an odd thing but my fingernails have to be right and everything just kind of has to be right to get a feel for the knuckle ball, and it is a tough pitch. It's not something that I would overly recommend for young kids but if you need another pitch, it's not a bad pitch to throw instead of probably in place of a curve ball, you know when you are in that eleven, twelve range. So for me use all three knuckles and just kind of on placing them feel, put my thumb slightly to the side and my baby finger is off the ball. So this is going to vary for each pitcher. Obviously guys like me, Karone and Wakefield have also revived careers and had great careers, long lasting careers from it and it's not obviously something that we want to recommend guys to start to get into the big leagues but it is definitely a pitch that has saved some careers and put some longevity onto somebody. Another gimmick pitch."