''Knuckleball!'' is a 2012

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

that follows the 2011 seasons of

Tim Wakefield Timothy Stephen Wakefield (born August 2, 1966) is an American former professional baseball pitcher who played 19 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB). Wakefield began his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates, but is most remembered for his 17-yea ...

and

R. A. Dickey Robert Allen Dickey (born October 29, 1974) is an American former professional baseball pitcher. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Texas Rangers, Seattle Mariners, Minnesota Twins, New York Mets, Toronto Blue Jays and Atlanta Bra ...

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

's only

knuckleball A knuckleball or knuckler is a baseball pitch thrown to minimize the spin of the ball in flight, causing an erratic, unpredictable motion. The air flow over a seam of the ball causes the ball to change from laminar to turbulent flow. This chan ...

pitchers that year. It was released in theaters on September 20, 2012 and on DVD on April 2, 2013. Wakefield won his 200th game in 2011 and Dickey won the 2012

Cy Young Award The Cy Young Award is given annually to the best pitchers in Major League Baseball (MLB), one each for the American League (AL) and National League (NL). The award was first introduced in 1956 by Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick in honor of Hall ...

Background

Stern and Sundberg's previous documentary was '' Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work''. They had also previously directed the documentary ''

The Devil Came on Horseback ''The Devil Came on Horseback'' is a documentary film by Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg illustrating the continuing Darfur Conflict in Sudan. Based on the book by former U.S. Marine The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as t ...

'' about the

War in Darfur The War in Darfur, also nicknamed the Land Cruiser War, is a major armed conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan that began in February 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebel groups beg ...

Plot

The film sets up the 2011 season by showing how the knuckleball saved both pitchers from obscurity. Dickey moved his family 37 times before landing with the

New York Mets The New York Mets are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of Queens. The Mets compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) East division. They are one of two major league ...

. The film presents Wakefield's chase of his 200th win as a member of the 2011 Red Sox and Dickey's make-it-or-break-it season with the 2011 Mets. It demonstrates the fraternal nature of knuckleball pitchers who trade tips of the trade via various meetings with the likes of

Phil Niekro Philip Henry Niekro ( ; April 1, 1939 – December 26, 2020), nicknamed "Knucksie", was an American baseball pitcher who played 24 seasons in Major League Baseball, 20 of them with the Atlanta Braves, Milwaukee / Atlanta Braves. Niekro's 31 ...

and

Charlie Hough Charles Oliver Hough (; born January 5, 1948) is an American former Major League Baseball (MLB) knuckleball pitcher and coach who played for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Texas Rangers, Chicago White Sox, and Florida Marlins from 1970 to 1994. Play ...

. Dickey won the Cy Young Award in November 2012.

Cast

Reception

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

the film scored 73 out of 100 based on 9 reviews.

Neil Genzlinger Neil Genzlinger is an American playwright, editor, book reviewer, and theatre and television critic who frequently writes for ''The New York Times''. Family Genzlinger is a grandson of the late ''The Philadelphia Bulletin'' columnist Don Rose. ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', noted that the film's release coincided with Dickey's Cy Young run, which made the "first-rate sports documentary" especially sweet. ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

Ty Burr Ty Burr (born August 17, 1957) is an American film critic, columnist, and author who currently writes a film and popular culture newsletter "Ty Burr's Watchlist" on Substack. Burr previously served as film critic at ''The Boston Globe'' for two ...

said "The movie's a must for baseball fans in general and

Red Sox The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Founded in as one of the American League's eight ...

fans in particular". Even the film's harshest critics such as ''

Time Out Time-out, Time Out, or timeout may refer to: Time * Time-out (sport), in various sports, a break in play, called by a team * Television timeout, a break in sporting action so that a commercial break may be taken * Timeout (computing), an enginee ...

s David Fear says "Viewers who can’t get enough of

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

's "

30 for 30 ''30 for 30'' is the title for a series of documentary films airing on ESPN, its sister networks, and online highlighting interesting people and events in sports history. This includes three "volumes" of 30 episodes each, a 13-episode series un ...

" docs will lap up this dual portrait", but continued to say that "Nonfans, however, are about to find out exactly what the phrase ''inside baseball'' means."

Notes

External links

* (archived from original) * * {{Baseball pitches 2012 films 2012 documentary films 2010s sports films American baseball films Documentary films about baseball Films set in 2011 Films set in Boston Films set in New York City Sports films based on actual events Films directed by Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg 2010s English-language films 2010s American films