Legends of the Ball

Since I've already met my non-baseball quotient for the day, I thought I'd go ahead with this post. I love baseball!

Have you ever heard of Steve Dalkowski? No? That's what I expected. Would you believe me if I told you that in one season, no make that two separate seasons, he recorded a K/9 in. ratio of 17.56. For those uninitiated into baseball statistics, that means that for every 9 innings that he pitched (one entire game) he struck out an average of 17 batters! That's insane. The major league single season record for that is 13.41 by Randy Johnson in 2001. But wait you say...if that's the major league record, what about Dalkowski.

Those two seasons were done in the minor leagues. In 1957 with the Kingsport Pirates and also again in 1958 with the Aberdeen Pheasants, he struck out 121 batters in 62 innings. Now, I assume your question is why didn't he do well in the major leagues? Well, he never pitched in the major leagues. Why you ask? He had a little problem with control. Not anger, pitching control. In fact, in those two previously mentioned seasons, he walked 129 and 112 batters respectively.

On top of the fact that he couldn't control his pitches very well, he had a viciously fast arm. Legend has it that he once broke through the netting of a backstop on three straight pitches and also once tore part of a batter's ear off with a pitch. Supposedly, this is the incident that gave him the most trouble as he was afraid he would one day kill someone with a pitch. Most people believed his pitches were as fast as 105 mph.

Dalkowski ended up a serious alcoholic after leaving baseball and wasn't hear from much again. Sadly, this is a true story...unlike Sidd Finch