I like the idea of baseball more than baseball itself, I’d say. That is, I rarely watch baseball on TV because I find it mind-numbingly dull, but I love Ken Burns’ documentary series about it. I like baseball ok in a live ballpark environment, but on film I find it completely captivating and terrific. So I’m sure if I watched R.A. Dickey pitch in an actual baseball game I’d probably be disinterested. In Knuckleball! though, I can’t get enough of it. Like Jiro, this is a movie whose ideas and images extend beyond the world of professional baseball.
I doubt there has ever been a better visual demonstration and, by extension, tangible explanation of how the knuckleball works or what it looks like than the footage in this film. You may have heard about what throwing the ball in this way does to it, but seeing it slowed down here is kind of amazing. But the stuff I liked most were the scenes showcasing the small community of major league pitchers who threw this unique pitch. It’s unlikely there is a more exclusive, specialized club of individuals than the four featured in Knuckleball. So it’s cute when they get together to talk about their craft together, but also a bit fascinating to see basically the only people in the world who are able to perform this action at a high level in the same room together.
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