Suitors of Spring, The: The Solitary Art of Pitching, from Seaver to Sain to Dalkowski (Summer Game Books Baseball Classics) Read Online Free PDF

insufferable to manager Earl Weaver. But under Weaver, an intense, roly-poly little man, Dalkowski began to throw strikes—relatively speaking. For the first time in his career he walked fewer batters (114) than innings pitched (160), while still striking out a substantial number (192). He won 7 games, lost 10, and posted a respectable 3.04 ERA. He led the league in shutouts with 6, and he also completed 8 of 19 starts, the most of his career. The following spring with the Orioles at Miami, Dalkowski said Earl Weaver had given him confidence.
    “I felt that Steve had been given every tip on control that was ever known,” said Weaver. “I knew that the smartest pitching coaches in baseball had worked with him. There wasn’t anything I could tell him that he hadn’t heard a hundred times before. The one thing I did try to do was keep quiet.”
    During the spring of 1963 Dalkowski’s progress was the talk of the Orioles’ training camp. In a two-inning relief stint against the Dodgers he fanned five and gave up no hits or walks. Harry Brecheen said that Dalkowski was just the short reliever the Orioles had been looking for, and then added: “The boy has come a long way. There is no doubt of his improvement. He is more settled as an individual and he deserves to make it. Steve is a good kid.”
    Toward the end of spring training Dalkowski was interviewed by a reporter who asked him if all the strenuous activity he had placed on his arm had ever damaged it through the years. Dalkowski admitted that he had lost a little off his fastball at the age of 23, but then said, no, he had never really had a sore arm in his life. A few days later in an exhibition game, Dalkowski fielded a bunt and threw off-balance to first base. He got the runner, but also pinched a muscle in his elbow. He was never the same pitcher again.
    The Orioles shipped him to Rochester of the International League, hoping that his arm might come around. But he pitched only 12 innings there, then 29 innings at Elmira. For the first time in his career he was unable to average one strikeout per inning. The following season he started at Elmira and then drifted down to Stockton, where he was 8–4 with a 2.83 ERA. His arm apparently had begun to heal, but he hurt it again in 1965 and was sent to Tri-Cities of the Class B Northwest League. In 1961 he had fanned 150 batters in 103 innings at Tri-Cities; in 1965 he managed only 62 strikeouts in 84 innings, the worst record of his career. In mid-season the Orioles released him, and he was picked up by the Los Angeles Angels and sent to San Jose. The following spring the Angels gave him his unconditional release.
    Today, five years after he left baseball, Dalkowski’s name still evokes recognition from anyone who ever participated in professional baseball. Recently Dick Schaap, the noted sportswriter, asked Tom Seaver to name the fastest pitcher ever. Seaver did not hesitate in answering “Steve Dalkowski,” although he added he had never seen him pitch.
    But Steve Dalkowski’s real fame rests not with the Tom Seavers in cities such as New York. Instead, it lies in all those low minor league towns like Wellsville and Leesburg and Yakima and Stockton, or wherever talented but erratic young players are struggling toward the major leagues. To these minor-leaguers Dalkowski will always symbolize every frustration and elation they have ever felt because of their God-given talent. They take pride in recalling his successes, as if his was the ultimate talent, and his struggle to discipline it, the ultimate struggle. If Steve Dalkowski had succeeded it would have given proof to their own future success. But even his failure does not diminish him, for it was not the result of deficiency but of excess. He was too fast. His ball moved too much. His talent was superhuman. To young players he is proof that failure is not always due to a dearth of physical talent. So, in a way, Dalkowski’s lack of achievement softens the