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very hard. So when I saw a picture on the back of a cereal package explaining how to throw the knuckleball, I thought I’d try it.
    There was a picture of Dutch Leonard and a picture of how he held the ball, and about a paragraph explaining it. The knuckleball isn’t thrown with the knuckles, of course. It’s thrown with the fingertips, and the principle is to release the ball so that it leaves all the fingertips at the same time without any spin on the ball. The air currents and humidity take over and cause the ball to turn erratically and thus move erratically.
    Wilhelm was doing pretty good with the Giants at the time, and that was another reason to try it—except that my hand was so small I couldn’t hold the ball with three fingers like everybody else did. I had to hold it with all five. I still do. It’s kind of freaky, I guess, but as a result I throw it harder than anybody else. Anyway, it took about a week before I could get it to knuckle at all. I remember once I threw one to my brother and hit him right in the knee. He was writhing on the ground moaning, “What a great pitch, what a great pitch.” I spent the rest of the summer trying to maim my brother.
    I used the knuckleball all the way through high school and college, about 50 percent of the time. I might have been the youngest junkball pitcher in America. After a couple of years in the minors, however, I started to get bigger and stronger and started to overpower people with my fastball. So I phased the knuckleball out.
    I never really used it again until 1967. My arm was very sore and I was getting my head beat in. Houk put me into a game against Baltimore and I didn’t have a thing, except pain. I got two out and then, with my arm hurting like hell, I threw four knuckleballs to Frank Robinson and struck him out. The next day I got sent to Syracuse. Even so, it wasn’t until the last part of the next season that I began throwing it again. The idea that you’ve lost your regular stuff is very slow in coming.
    Sal the Barber came over to me today and said, “You’re looking smoother than I remember seeing you in the last few years. You’re getting your body into it now. I remember thinking that you were using up your force before you even released the ball and looked as though you never released it the same way twice.”
    That made me feel pretty good. Then Bob Lemon, manager of the Pilots’ Triple-A Vancouver club, came over and said, “Hello, Bill,” and Mike Ferraro, an infielder, hollered while I was pitching, “Fire it in there Bob.” Thanks a lot, Hank. Thanks a lot, Sam.

MARCH
2
    Tommy Harper, who’s an infielder listed as an outfielder on the roster, reported today. He’s certain to make this team, along with guys like Barber, McNertney, Gary Bell, Mike Hegan, Ray Oyler, Don Mincher, Rich Rollins and Tommy Davis. Harper just got out of the Air Force and they asked him if he wanted to re-up, as they call it. They told him he could come back for two years and they’d make him a staff sergeant. And he told them, “I wouldn’t re-up for two years if you made me a general.”
    We had sliding and pick-off drills today and I noticed a lot of the guys having trouble. Lasko was standing next to me during one of them and said, “Hey, I thought this was a simple game.”
    It’s tough in these drills to perform like you should perform because you’re much better off in athletics if you do things instinctively. I suppose that’s what they mean when they say baseball isn’t a thinking man’s game. If you have to think about it, you tend to do things mechanically rather than naturally.
    I’ve always felt there were three kinds of athletes. First, there’s the guy who does everything instinctively and does it right in the first place. I think Willie Mays is that kind of guy, and so was Mickey Mantle. I don’t think these guys can articulate what they’re doing, they just know what to do and they go out and do it. I put Yogi Berra in