The fastball pitcher whose failure became legend

Steve Dalkowski was the greatest neverwas in baseball. A physically unimposing left-hander, Dalkowski could hurl a fastball with such phenomenal speed that legions of players swear it’s never been equaled. “The hardest thrower I ever saw,” said Hall of Fame manager Cal Ripken Sr., who claimed the pitcher approached 115 miles per hour. Dalkowski had everything, explained one former coach—“except control.” He walked batters as often as he struck them out, and sometimes sent a pitch over the backstop or into the bleachers. Through nine minor-league seasons no coach could find the cure, and Dalkowski—inspiration for the errant pitcher “Nuke” LaLoosh in the 1988 movie Bull Durham— never played a majorleague game. He was just as wild off the mound, a prodigious carouser who eventually became an alcoholic drifter. “He had the equivalent of Michelangelo’s gift,” wrote Bull Durham screenwriter and director Ron Shelton, “but could never finish a painting.”

Dalkowski was born in New Britain, Conn., where his father was a tool and die maker and his mother “worked in a ball bearing factory,” said The New York Times. A star athlete in

Steve Dalkowski

high school, he threw back-to-back no-hitters and notched 24 strikeouts in a single game. Dalkowski signed with the Baltimore Orioles in 1957, said The Hartford Courant, and

“with $4,000 and a new car” headed to Kingsport, Tenn., to play in the Appalachian League. He went 1-8 his first season, as he struggled with the power of his own arm—one fastball tore off part of a batter’s ear—and his drinking. His performance improved in 1963, and he was fitted for a Baltimore uniform. But while pitching a spring training game, Dalkowski “felt a pop in his elbow and his hand went numb.” He “tried to come back from the injury,” said The Washington Post, “but the lightning was gone.” He “disappeared for years,” becoming a migrant farmworker in California, living on the street, and failing at numerous rehab attempts. On Christmas Eve in 1992, a family found Dalkowski disoriented in a Los Angeles laundromat, took him in, and reunited him with his sister. She placed him in an assisted-living facility blocks from “the high school baseball field where he first found glory.” He spent 26 years there, gazing out the window and contemplating his unlikely path. “What do I think about?” he said to a journalist in 1996. “Strikes.”

Philip Kahn, who was born in New York City amid the flu pandemic of 1918-19— which killed his twin brother, Samuel, weeks after birth— and went on to serve in the Pacific with an Army aerial unit during World War II, died April 17, age 100.

Iris Love, American archaeologist who in 1969 discovered the Temple of Aphrodite in Knidos—an ancient Greek city that is now part of modern Turkey—and had a successful sideline in breeding champion dachshunds, died April 17, age 86.

Donald Reed Herring, older brother of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and former Air Force pilot who flew combat missions in Vietnam, died April 21, age 86.

Rana Zoe Mungin, beloved Brooklyn teacher who taught history and selfempowerment to her sixth-grade students, more than half of whom lived below the poverty line, died April 27, age 30.