Knuckler Helps Ease Enforced Mound Career
"Three years ago, when Johnny Lindell joined the Hollywood Stars, he did so as an outfielder looking forward to five or six years of steady and profitable whittling at Pacific Coast League pitching.
'In the twilight of my career,' he mused happily, 'it will be nice to hit against people whose names are not Feller, Newhouser, Trucks and Trout.'
Mr. Lindell, you may recall, became one of the New York Yankees back in 1941. He was a respectable, if not respected, pitcher in those days, with an arm still full of fastballs, curves, sliders, sinkers and other bric-a-brac of this uncertain trade. The Yankees, wanting to take advantage of his hitting ability, converted John into an outfielder where he served a number of years (brilliantly in the 1947 World Series) before a certain amount of athletic deterioration set in.
However, Fred Haney, the Hollywood Stars' manager, was a man long on memory and short on pitchers. Racking his brain, Mr. Haney remembered a certain Lindell pitching for the Yankees eight years before, and proceeded accordingly.
'Welcome to our pitching staff,' greeted Mr. Haney.
'I beg pardon.'
'You're the same Lindell who pitched for the Yankees, aren't you?' demanded Fred.
'I am also the same Lindell who played outfield for the Yankees,' said John. 'Now, if you'll just show me where right field is in this ball park, I will- '
'You will pitch, or you won't play.'
'Hmm,' replied Mr. Lindell thoughtfully. 'And if I don't play I don't get paid.'
'Inescapable,' said Mr. Haney.
Big John retired to the bullpen, where the press found him earnestly trying to resume his pitching career.
'You might say,' responded Mr. Lindell, to a question, 'that I am a pitcher with eight years rest.'
As things developed, Mr. Lindell was not wholly taken aback by Haney's request that he give up the wide open spaces of right field and concentrate on the pitcher's plate. For several years, while with the Yankees, John experimented on a sort of insurance policy against the day he might have to return to hurling for his bread and butter.
His insurance policy was the knuckle ball. He threw it on the sidelines, during warm-up periods, in the day when he played outfield for the Yankees. The knuckler is the hardest pitch in the catalog of deliveries to control, since it has a mind of its own, flitting along vagrantly on the air currents.
It is gripped, as a general thing, with the points of the first and second fingers pressed on the smooth surface of the ball. Mr. Lindell grips it with three fingers, holding the ball out and away from his palm. The ball is released with absolutely no controlling spin- wind resistance controls the break. The ball may dart sideways; it may jump; it may dart and then jump. At times it appears to hang in the air, making up its mind which way to go.
Ball players have nicknamed it 'the snake' and catchers curse the day it was invented.
This, then, is the pitch that stands between Mr. Lindell and driving a truck. A number of pitchers rely on the knuckle ball, but none so heavily as Mr. Lindell, who throws it 80 per cent of the time.
The thankless job of boxing this treacherous delivery falls to Mike Sandlock, the Hollywood catcher. On second thought, the job isn't thankless at all. Eddie Malone, Hollywood's other catcher, is extremely solicitous about Sandlock's health and is thankful that Mike can make it to the park, on days when Lindell is scheduled to pitch. Even when he is called upon to catch John in the comparative safety of the bullpen, Eddie puts on a mask, chest protector and shin guards before having anything to do with that knuckle ball.
'It's a fine feeling,' observed Mr. Lindell recently, 'to know that all I have to do is get this &*%$! over the plate and all is well.'
'What about your other pitches?'
'That garbage?' he snorted. 'I throw it to other pitchers, exclusively.' "
-Emmett Watson, condensed from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Baseball Digest, August 1952)
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