The Wikipedia description of the 1949 film “It Happens Every Spring” says “the story of a baseball pitcher is completely fictitious, and the main character King Kelly is not based on or related to the actual player.” Wikipedia needs an update.
There is nothing fictitious about R.A. Dickey or what he has done. He has brought to life King Kelly, a.k.a. a college professor named Vernon K. Simpson, and in his own way he has duplicated Simpson’s accidental discovery of how to make pitched baseballs avoid wood bats.
Unless Dickey is getting away with something everyone has missed, he has not used any substance to make balls miss bats. King Kelly put a substance on the balls, and they jumped over and dived under bats. Dickey achieves that trick with his knuckleball.
“He throws a hard knuckleball; Phil Niekro and others threw a soft knuckleball,” said Omar Minaya, who when he was their general manager brought Dickey to the Mets as a minor league free agent in 2010.
Minaya had been a long-time Dickey fan, since he worked for Texas and the Rangers made Dickey their first-round pick (18th player selected) in the 1996 draft.
“We agreed to a deal for something like $800,000,” Minaya recalled. “Then we found out he didn’t have an elbow tendon so $800,000 became something like $100,000.”
Dickey was not a knuckleball pitcher at that time but became one by necessity later. In 10 years with the Texas organization, the right-hander did not play a full season with the Rangers. Becoming a minor league free agent, he signed with Milwaukee and Minnesota and was drafted by Seattle in the minor league draft, all in 2007.
It wasn’t until last year, his 15th in professional baseball, that Dickey played a full major league season. It was with the Mets, whom he joined May 19, 2010 with a promotion from AAA Buffalo.
“He came to camp with us in 2010 and was the first, or one of the first cuts,” Minaya recalled. “In spring training one day he was in front of his locker. Guys in his situation contemplate what they want to do: should I go down or give it up? He had that look on his face. He was really bad in spring training.”
Minaya, however, wasn’t letting Dickey go anywhere. “I wouldn’t let our minor league people release him,” he said. “because I felt he could be a good pitcher on the Triple A team and help other pitchers. I also knew he would be a good coach one day. He was always one of my favorites. The manager and coaches knew that.”
As often happens, developments took care of the matter. One of the Mets’ pitchers got hurt, Minaya said, “and we brought him up.”
“He had been the 10th man on the Triple A staff,” Minaya added, but when you call up pitchers from the minor leagues you call up the pitcher who’s pitching the best, you bring up the hot guy. That’s why those 4A guys stay around. They know at any given moment they can be called up.”
Dickey became a regular in the rotation, compiling a two-year 19-22 record with a 3.08 earned run average. He wasn’t as impressive as Ray Milland was in St. Louis, but the best was to come.
What Dickey has done this year, though, hasn’t just been his best. He has been phenomenal. In 14 starts the 37-year-old Dickey has produced an 11-1 record and a 2.00 e.r.a., giving him the most wins in the majors, the best winning percentage and the lowest e.r.a.
He also has the lowest baserunners/9 innings ratio, 8.18, and he has the third lowest opponents’ batting average, .194, and the third most strikeouts, 103.
Even more impressive has been his performance in his last six starts, the last two of which have been one-hitters: 6-0, 0.18 e.r.a., 63 strikeouts, 5 walks, 21 hits, 0.55 baserunners/9 innings, .144 opponents’ batting average in 48 2/3 innings.
His two consecutive one-hit shutouts are especially interesting not only because they are the first in the majors since Dave Stieb did it in 1988 and the first in the National League since Jim Tobin did in 1944 but also because they outdo anything Nolan Ryan, the best low-hit pitcher ever, did in his career.
Ryan, who punctuated his career with seven no-hitters and a dozen one-hitters, never pitched two of those games consecutively. He had two of them in the same season three times and three of them in one of those seasons.
Elias Sports Bureau calls Dickey’s streak unprecedented in modern major league history (post-1900):
He is the only pitcher to throw two consecutive complete games allowing one hit or none with 10 or more strikeouts. He is the only pitcher who has struck out at least 60 and allowed two or fewer runs in a 6-0 stretch over 6 starts.
Dickey now has made seven successive starts with eight or more strikeouts and two or fewer walks, matching the longest such streak since 1900.
And for good measure, Elias notes that the knuckleballer is the 10th pitcher since 1900 to allow one hit or none in consecutive complete games but the first pitcher to throw consecutive one-hitters in interleague games.
Minaya remains one of Dickey’s biggest boosters even though he works for the San Diego Padres.
“I always liked him and stayed in contact with him,” he said. “I like him because of his character. He was always going to give you everything he had. He was always going to be a competitor. I was impressed and intrigued by the speed of his knuckleball, but I was always impressed with him as a person, too. It wasn’t because of his ability; it was the kind of person he was.”
Minaya added, “I’m happy for him. Because of the knuckleball I can see him doing this for another four, five years.”
Because of Dickey’s late arrival in the majors as a steady starter, Dickey won’t have the longevity of the best known knuckleballers, such as the Niekros, Hall of Famer Phil and brother Joe; Charlie Hough and Hoyt Wilhelm. However, Dickey’s bravura performance this season catapults him into the pantheon of unparalleled performers.
“It’s a good story,” Minaya said.
Maybe even better than “It Happens Every Spring.”