Hoyt Wilhelm

• Born: July 26, 1923
• Birthplace: Huntersville, North Carolina
• Died: August 23, 2002
• Place of death: Sarasota, Florida

Sport: Baseball

Early Life

James Hoyt Wilhelm grew up as one of eleven children in a poor tenant farm family in the rural South during the era of the Great Depression. Born in Huntersville, a small town outside Charlotte, North Carolina, as a child, Hoyt moved with his family to a farm five miles away in the countryside. He developed an early interest in baseball and, encouraged by his father, often played the game with older boys. He began to throw the knuckleball at the age of twelve after reading about this unusual pitch in a Charlotte newspaper’s feature article on the Washington Senators. Since few pitchers master the knuckleball, Wilhelm’s early success with the pitch for his Cornelius High School team in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s gained much local attention.

The Road to Excellence

In 1942, Hoyt played his first season of professional baseball with the Mooresville team of the North Carolina State League. He won ten games and lost only three but had a less-than-stellar earned run average (ERA) of 4.25. His main pitch, the knuckleball, was also a problem. For a knuckleball pitch, the ball is grasped by the fingertips, not the knuckles, and is thrown with an easy motion so as to release the pitch with virtually no spin. The absence of spin combines with the stitching on the surface of the ball to make it move in an irregular, unpredictable path from the mound to home plate. A properly thrown knuckleball is difficult to hit, but it is also difficult to catch. The absence of experienced catchers in the minor leagues meant that knuckleball pitchers had difficulty moving up through the competitive system in professional baseball to earn a chance to play in the major leagues.

After three years in the Army during World War II, including combat service in the Battle of the Bulge, Hoyt returned to baseball but moved up slowly in the farm system of the New York Giants. He reached the highest level of the minor leagues at Minneapolis of the American Association in 1951. By this time, however, he was twenty-eight years old, an age when most major-league players have established themselves.

The Emerging Champion

Leo Durocher, manager of the New York Giants, gave Hoyt a chance to pitch in the big leagues, and the knuckleball specialist responded with an unexpected and resounding success. Working as a relief pitcher, Hoyt won fifteen games, lost only three, and had the best winning percentage—83.3 percent—and the lowest ERA&Mdash;2.43—in the National League (NL). For the next two years, he was a remarkably effective relief pitcher for Durocher’s teams, including the 1954 Giants squad that won the NL pennant and then defeated the Cleveland Indians in the World Series. In establishing himself as the most respected knuckleball pitcher in baseball, Hoyt had the benefit of relying on Wes Westrum, one of the most capable defensive catchers of that era.

Continuing the Story

Hoyt’s work with the New York Giants from 1952 to 1954 made him a respected performer, but it was his twenty-one-year record of success with a total of nine different major-league teams that earned him entry into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1985. His mastery of the knuckleball was unusual, and many managers and most catchers did not want to use that pitch in close ball games, when a wild pitch or a passed ball can lose the contest. Hoyt was most successful on teams with managers who were willing to take a chance on the knuckleball and catchers who had the reflexes and patience to handle it.

After playing for three different teams in the 1957-1958 season, Hoyt found a new home on the Baltimore Orioles under manager Paul Richards. A former major-league catcher, Richards not only purchased Hoyt’s contract from the Cleveland Indians but also converted him into a starting pitcher—with impressive results. Hoyt responded on September 20, 1958, with a no-hitter against the New York Yankees, the team that won the World Series that fall. The next year the thirty-six-year-old pitched more than 200 innings for the first and only time in his major-league career, won fifteen games, and had the American League’s (AL’s) lowest ERA: 2.19. Richards instructed his catcher Gus Triandos to use a specially made, oversized catcher’s mitt when working with Hoyt, which made it easier to block or knock down the unpredictable knuckleball. Hoyt gave much of the credit for his comeback to Richards and Triandos.

Hoyt solidified his reputation as one of baseball’s all-time greats in his years with the Chicago White Sox, from 1963 to 1968. In that span, he appeared extensively in relief with remarkably low ERAs that ranged from 1.99 to 1.31. He began this impressive stretch at the age of forty, when most players have retired. He ended his career in 1972, after two seasons of limited play with the Atlanta Braves and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Summary

Hoyt Wilhelm reached the major leagues at the age of twenty-nine, several years later than most players, but then set out on a twenty-one-year career that was exceptional not only for its length but also for the quality of his work. A quiet country boy, Hoyt claimed that much of his success came from his capacity to stay calm in close games and from his willingness to use the knuckleball in difficult situations.

Bibliography

Hollenberg, Joel W. “Knuckleballs.” Scientific American 257, no. 1 (July, 1987): 22.

James, Bill. The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract. New York: Free Press, 2003.

Kuenster, John. At Home and Away: Thirty-three Years of Baseball Essays. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2003.