WRIGHT MAKES KNUCKLEBALL FAMILY PROUD
Steven Wright talks eagerly about his family and how if the pressures of Major League Baseball overwhelm him, he’ll walk away from the game even if he has some good years left in his right arm.
Yet for Wright, family takes on a connotation beyond his wife Shannon, their two children and the 30 relatives and close friends he invited out for a celebratory dinner Monday night on the eve of his first appearance at Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game.
He’s now an inextricable part of a professional family, with Charlie Hough as the patriarch, Tim Wakefield as the helpful older brother and R.A. Dickey as the rival with whom he’ll occasionally share a secret.
The family of knuckleball pitchers is tight, largely because it is a clan forged by failure, a group of pitchers congregating at the last-chance hotel of their careers. Many fail; some, such as current Tampa Bay Rays pitching coordinator Charlie Haeger, enjoy a dalliance with major league success.
Wright is a fortunate one; he’s the third knuckleball pitcher in seven years to finesse his way to the All-Star Game, joining Wakefield (2009) and Dickey, who struck out 230 batters in 2012 on his way to the National League Cy Young Award, a first for the fraternity.
He is one of six Boston Red Sox players to make the American League squad, but the nature of his craft is such that Wright will never get too comfortable.
Yet there’s a certain reward for Wright in knowing he was nearly out of baseball four years ago and now has a gaggle of associates to call upon in lean times.
“I think that’s more important — the struggle,” Wright said Monday. “Everybody struggles with it. Charlie Hough — you see he pitched 25 years, Wakefield 19 years, and you see the success.
“But a lot of people don’t understand there’s a lot of struggle during that and before that, and that’s what they help me out with. It’s nice to have that, almost, circle of friends. We hold each other accountable, and now they’re holding me accountable, and I hope I can pass that on to someone else.”
Right now, there’s precious little struggle for Wright. He hits the All-Star break with a 10-5 record and an AL-best 2.68 ERA. He sounded not at all perturbed to learn he may not pitch Tuesday night, as AL manager Ned Yost laid out a succession of starting pitchers he planned to employ before turning it over to his relievers.
The list did not include Wright, which might disappoint the 16 relatives and friends for whom Wright procured tickets, most driving here from Moreno Valley, Calif., Wright’s hometown about 90 minutes to the north.
Perspective comes easily for Wright, however. He was nearly out of the game at 25, when he was backsliding in the Cleveland Indians organization and on the verge of getting released. He had one bit of recourse: His personal pitching coach as a child, Frank Pastore, the former major league pitcher, introduced him to the knuckleball when he was 9.
It took Wright two years to commit to the switch. Looking back, he realizes the Indians’ leap of faith saved him.
“For me, it was a last-ditch effort. I didn’t want to get released,” he said. “You have to have an organization willing to give that player time to grow. The Indians started this journey, and the best thing they could have done was trade me to the Red Sox.”
Wright joined the organization a year after Wakefield’s career ended, but the 200-game winner remained in the Red Sox’s employ as a studio analyst. The teacherpupil relationship was born, and by April 2013, Wright was summoned to Boston.
Two years later, he commands the pitch deftly, while also, like Dickey, throwing a fastball much firmer than most knuckleballers. It’s a daunting combination.
“It’s one of the best I’ve seen,” says Baltimore Orioles catcher Matt Wieters, whose team has been beaten twice by Wright this year. “A lot of hitters think, ‘Well, he’s going to throw an 80-mph fastball, I’m going to be able to hit it.’ But he locates it well, it’s the same arm speed as his knuckleball — you actually have to hit it.
“It’s amazing to be able to have the consistency with it. It’s probably the pitch that has the most elements involved in it — the wind element, humidity, whether he has an ingrown fingernail, or anything like that can change the whole complexion of the game.”
It’s those unknowns that may compel Yost to save Wright for emergency duty Tuesday; should the game go extra innings, Wright could conceivably pitch into Wednesday, with Wieters admittedly saying he’ll do his best to catch it.
“In the end, it’s not easy to do,” Wright says. “It’s hard to do. For me, to kill the spin on the ball is easy. It was learning how to throw it for a strike in a game situation with the game on the line with 50,000 people screaming at you — that’s the stuff that’s the mental part.
“You’re facing a guy like Mike Trout or Miguel Cabrera, and they know what’s coming and you still have to throw it.”
While Wright, 31, may not pitch until he’s 44, like Wakefield, or 41, like Dickey, he’s showing the potential for longevity. He’s 17-10 with a 3.30 ERA over parts of four seasons and perhaps most impressively avoids home run balls better than anyone in the AL right now — just 0.6 per nine innings, with a career mark of 0.9.
He spreads the credit around — working with Hough two or three times an offseason, huddling frequently with Wakefield, chatting but keeping some distance with AL East rival Dickey, and even tapping lesser-known knuckler artists such as Steve Sparks.
It’s not lost on Wright that his phone’s the one that could be ringing soon. And he’s more than happy to eventually groom another member of this extended family.
“It’s an honor,” he says. “I’m honored to represent the Red Sox and the knuckleball fraternity. Even though I don’t see myself as a role model, or someone another kid’s going to look up to, it comes with the territory. I hope it inspires somebody.”