Steve Dalkowski

I don't think there's a better Wikipedia entry about a minor league pitcher who never made it to big leagues.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Dalkowski

Ted Williams was quoted as saying he never saw the ball, he only heard it when it hit the catcher's mitt.

Did any of you ever see him pitch? Any interesting stories about this legendary flamethrower?

This is from Joe Poz ...

https://sportsworld.nbcsports.com/fixin ... dalkowski/

Fascinating story of a guy I had never heard of before. Thanks for sharing.

Fascinating case, indeed. I never met the guy, but I get asked about him often in interviews (Google Dalkowski and Fleisig). (i.e. my real-life name is Glenn Fleisig)

Although Dalkowski is still alive, unfortunately he is mentally in bad shape and can't be interviewed directly. Here's a fairly recent story about Dalkowski's situation that I was interviewed for: https://www.courant.com/sports/hc-sp-am ... story.html

Thanks for sharing. At that time I was getting ready to graduate high school and loved baseball. Am surprised I never heard of him. Great story.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/regi ... lkow001ste

Great story, Glenn, thanks for sharing.

Dalkowski must have had freakish ability, that he unfortunately never was able to harness, especially when you consider how many pitches he would have been throwing per game with all those walks and strikeouts going deep into the count with every batter. I'd guess he was routinely exceeding 150 pitches per start.

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Closest analog I could find from players we use in ATG is Ryne Duren 1960.

49 IP, 27 hits, 49 BB, 67 K, 1.55 WHIP, 4.02 ERA

Awesome article. I am still trying to comprehend if someone could throw 283 pitches in a game. However man I don't care whatever minor league level he pitched at I wish they had a good beer to drink and watch.

For those of you who have a subscription to "The Athletic", read about the legend of Steve Dalkowski by Joe Poz today.

I remember reading in Earl Weaver's autobiography that as a minor league manager in the Orioles system, he administered IQ tests to all the players on his team. He found that Dalkowski's IQ was well below average and decided that Dalkowski simple couldn't process all the advice he was getting from his coaches.
He decided to simplify the problem for his player. He kept telling Dalkowski: "Just throw fastballs for strikes, aiming for the the center of the plate. Don't worry about anything else." Weaver reasoned that with Dalkowski's speed, all he had to do was stop walking 18 guys and he'd be successful. Trying to mess with multiple pitches and try to hit the corners was beyond his capacity. Dalkowski had his best year ever in the minors under Weaver, walking "only" 114 batters in 160 IP for AAA Elmira, and posting an ERA of 3.04. The previous year he had walked 196 in 103 innings and posted an ERA of 8.39.
Once Weaver had moved on to a new team, some coach tried to get Dalkowski to learn a curve and pitch to spots—and it all went to hell again. By 1964, Dalkowski's ERA for three minor league teams was back up to 6.27, and he was moving backward down the chain minor-league chain in one year from AAA to AA to A.
I think this tells us something about Weaver. In the majors as well as the minors, he was good at analyzing what a player could do, what they couldn't do, and helping them to get the maximum out of their abilities.
The Weaver story is referenced in the wiki article, but it's even better as told in Weaver's autobiography. This book has one of my all-time favorite titles: It's What you Learn After You Know It All that Counts.