Phil Niekro, 1939 - 2020

 Atlanta Braves fans from the 1970's have not only long memories but also many regrettable ones. The 1979 Braves, with 66 wins and 94 losses, continued a miserable streak of finishing dead last in the old National League West. Every 1979 Braves pitcher with more than eight decisions had a losing record, including closer Gene Garber's atrocious 6 - 16 mark.

If you were thinking about attending a home game, you could be excused for checking the projected pitching matchup for the evening. Odds were almost three in four that the Braves' starter would be one of the six not named Phil Niekro who would combine for only 29 victories that year.

If 38-year-old manager Bobby Cox could figure out a way to run 40-year-old starting pitcher "Knucksie" Niekro out to the mound, he would. Who could blame him? Gripping the ball with thumb and fingernails, Niekro started 44 games, finishing 23 of them, facing 1,436 hitters and winning 21 while also losing 20. 

No pitcher since has started as many games, faced as many batters, or lost 20 while winning 20 or more. Pitching for a team that led the National League in errors committed, Niekro even won the Gold Glove for fielding. He defined the term workhorse. 

The 1979 season was not typical for Niekro or anyone else, for that matter, but it is illustrative. Pitching for mostly bad team in Milwaukee and Atlanta, Niekro compiled 264 of the his eventual 318 victories, now 16th all time, that eventually took him to Cooperstown and the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Not every Braves team that employed Niekro was bad. The Braves managed to win the National League West twice during his tenure, in 1969 and 1982. Niekro's combined record for those two seasons was a splendid 40 - 17, a winning percentage of 70%. 

During the final week of the 1982 season, when the Braves edged the Los Angeles Dodgers by a single game, the 43-year-old Niekro threw consecutive shutouts at San Francisco and San Diego, even contributing his seventh and final career homerun during the 3 - 0 victory against the Padres. He then carried a 1 - 0 lead into the fifth inning of 1982 National League Championship Series Game 1, before the rains came and helped wash the Braves right out of the playoffs.

When Niekro's skills finally diminished, at age 48, to the point that he was no longer a major league pitcher, the Braves signed him to a contract for the final game of the 1987 season. The last time Knucksie wore number 35 for the Braves, the fans would have advance knowledge and would turn out to cheer, an option fair weather fans had too often declined during his remarkable career. 

That early fall Sunday afternoon, Niekro tossed the final three of the amazing 5404 innings he threw at baseball's highest level. No one in the past century has pitched more.

As long as Phil Niekro pitched, a full three decades at the professional level, including 24 in the Major Leagues, it seemed as if he should stick around forever. This remarkable man, born (appropriately for a knuckleball pitcher) on April Fool's Day of 1939, succumbed to cancer at 81, yet another casualty of 2020.

Those of us who saw Niekro at his best, cutting loose the pitch that hitter Rick Monday said seemed to giggle at batters as it went past them, will never forget how ridiculous he made so many opponents look. I can even remember hearing Ernie Johnson, Skip Caray, and Pete Van Wieren describe such moments over WSB radio. 

The Braves, for all their futility during the 1970's, did manage some great moments. Hank Aaron hit homerun 715 for them, Ralph Garr won a batting title, and future superstar Dale Murphy showed his first flashes of greatness. Only Phil Niekro played alongside and darned near outlasted all of them. 

Phil Niekro never won a ring, never won the Cy Young Award, and but for a moment of magnanimity from manager Tom Lasorda and closer Bruce Sutter during the 1978 summer class, might never have pitched in an all star game.

His credentials are Hall of Fame solid, however, and his character, endurance, and patience even more so. Every colleague who ever spoke of him offered only praise. Now, Phil and brother Joe, who combined for more wins that any other brother duo in Major League history, are having a catch somewhere in celestial fields.

And if catcher Bob Uecker is right, each waits for the other's best pitch to stop rolling before picking it up and sending it back along in fluttery flight.