| Just happened to remember this today. When I
was 14 years old I had the strange privilege of
watching Steve Dalkowski, the fastest pitcher who
ever lived. By that time, after seven hard years
in pro ball, about a million drinks, and a severe
elbow injury that spring, his fastball had
diminished to "mere" Nolan Ryan levels,
but he was still something to see. He had gone to
Spring training with the Orioles that year, and
was unhittable. He had made the big club, and he
even got his picture on a 1963 baseball card, but
his spring injury got him sent down to Rochester,
and he never made it back up. Sorry to say,
Dalkowski didn't do anything extraordinary when I
watched him, but he did plenty throughout his
career. Dalkowski was a small guy, maybe 5'8',
160, with a gift like nobody ever had before or
since. His skinny left arm could propel a
fastball about 115 mph when he was young. To
place that in perspective, Dalkowski at his peak
was about as much faster than Nolan Ryan as Ryan
was faster than Hoyt Wilhelm. Unfortunately, he
had two major weaknesses to keep him from the
majors: 1. The bottle
2. Even when he was sober, he had severe
control problems. Not right-left problems, no, he
could get it over the plate, but sometimes it was
40 feet over the plate. His ball curved upward so
much that he couldn't control it at all. If he
skimmed the grass, he was barely able to keep it
from rising above the strike zone by the time it
got to the batter.
On August 31, 1957, he struck out 24 batters
in a minor league game - and lost! He also issued
18 walks in that game, hit four very unlucky
guys, threw six wild pitches, and allowed 9 runs.
He finished that year with an average of 18
strikeouts per game, but actually walked more
than he struck out. Former Yankees manager Bob
Lemon said the best Dalkowski exploit he saw was
when Steve hit a guy in the back - and the guy
was standing in line to buy a hot dog! He also
hit an announcer up in the booth once, and
finished the one season at Stockton with 262
strikeouts and 262 walks.
Sound familiar? Dalkowski played in the minors
with a guy named Ron Shelton. Shelton is the guy
who wrote the screenplay for Bull Durham. The
character of Nuke la Loosh was a tall
good-looking version of Dalkowski, right down to
the exact stats from his 1960 Stockton season!
For more about this fireballing legend, his
strange baseball career, and his sad
post-baseball decline, go here.
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