THE UNTOUCHABLE ONE; THE FASTEST, WILDEST, MOST INTIMIDATING PITCHER WHO NEVER MADE IT

Originally published Aug. 2, 1998

By Bob Elliott

New Britain, Conn. _ Who was the fastest pitcher ever?

It’s a question often asked in major-league clubhouses, even in this year of the home run assault.

Sometimes before answering, a coach will ask, “Only major-leaguers or anyone who played?”

If it’s an open field, the answer is often lefty Steve Dalkowski, who pitched nine years in the Baltimore organization and was the inspiration for the Nuke LaLoosh character in the movie Bull Durham.

Dalkowski never threw a pitch in the bigs, yet many scouts and veteran baseball people say he was the hardest thrower ever.

Why didn’t he make it? Well, he was a double-digit walk and strikeout guy who finished the night drinking doubles, too. He was wild, both on and off the field.

Bill Kirchen sings a country song that goes, “I Might Have Been a Lawyer, But I Couldn’t Pass the Bar.” Exchange the word “lawyer” for “pitcher” and you’ve got Dalkowski.

After trying to track down Dalkowski over several years, he finally was found in his hometown of New Britain, residing in the Walnut Hill Health Centre. He’s suffering from dementia, the result of alcohol abuse.

After being released by the O’s in 1965, he became a farm worker. Until 1992, he picked apricots, oranges, lemons and cotton while living in Oildale, Calif. Then he moved to Oklahoma City. When his wife died in 1994, his former catcher Frank Zupo -- a teammate at Stockton in 1960 -- and Dalkowski’s sister, Pat Cain, brought him home.

“What could have been isn’t, but it was good while it lasted,” Cain said, her voice filled with a sister’s love. “Stevie eats well now, sleeps well and leads a normal life.

“I had a call from someone this month. He said Joe Garagiola wanted to know if Stevie was still alive. I’m thinking, what did Stevie do all those years?”

What did he do? Well, facing 5,021 hitters in nine seasons, more than half the batters he faced either walked (1,354) or fanned (1,396) ... 54.8%

Was he blessed with a magical arm or cursed? He was given the gift of a blazing fastball, but was unable to throw it for strikes consistently. So near and yet so far.

“He was the hardest thrower I ever saw, and that includes Nolan Ryan and Sandy Koufax, all of them,” said Orioles general manager Pat Gillick, who was Dalkowski’s roommate at Elmira, N.Y., in 1962.

“It’s a shame he never made it. If this guy could have mastered it, he would have been the greatest reliever in history. He would had saved 50 or 60 games a season. The ball exploded out of his arm. I’m sure he threw 100-mph-plus.”

His life has come full circle now. Dalkowski and his sister are sitting in a park outside the nursing home. It’s across the street from the New Britain General Hospital, where both were born.

He is asked about the greatest compliment he ever received.

“It came from Ted Williams,” Dalkowski said. The Orioles were playing the Red Sox in spring training at Miami and Williams watched the New England phenom throw to hitters in the cage. Williams called for a catcher, had the batting cage taken away, jumped in and yelled, “Throw as hard as you can, kid.”

“He swung at 30 pitches and didn’t hit one fair, but he fouled off a bunch,” Dalkowski said.

Williams claimed he didn’t even see the first pitch and was “damned” if he’d face the kid again, unless forced to do so in a game.

“Some guy asked me, ‘Do you know who that was?’ “ Dalkowski said. “Of course I knew. I was a Sox fan.”

People who have asked Williams to confirm the story say he doesn’t remember the meeting. Dalkowski has trouble remembering things, but he remembers this. Parts of the story -- such as the “throw as hard as you can, kid” -- certainly sound like the brash Williams.

The Dalkowski family grew up as part of the Red Sox nation.

“Dad took us to Ted’s first game back at Fenway, after the Korean War,” sister Patti said. “We sat out in right field under the sign for the Jimmy Fund.”

Every team was interested in signing Dalkowski out of high school. Dalkowski said his father Steve and high school coach Bill Huber “wanted me to sign with the Sox, but they said if I could get more money, more power to me.”

How much was his bonus?

“The scout, Frank McGowan, gave me $4,000 (the limit at the time), plus $6,000 under the table,” Dalkowski said.

One of Dalkowski’s teammates in the minors was Ron Shelton, who wrote the screenplay for the movie Bull Durham, which starred Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins as Nuke LaLoosh.

Shelton based the Nuke character on Dalkowski’s exploits, such as hitting the announcer with a pitch. Nuke also hit the mascot. It was Dalkowski down to when they recited the numbers for the young phenom: 262 walks and 262 strikeouts.

That’s what Dalkowski did in 1960 at Stockton.

Dalkowski hasn’t seen the movie, but his sister Patti has. “I hope you didn’t do everything off the field that (LaLoosh) did,” she told her brother.

Anyway, Dalkowski was a lefty. LaLoosh was right-handed. Still, Dalkowski’s exploits are the stuff of legend.

Former Yankees manager Bob Lemon tells of seeing Dalkowski hitting a guy in the back -- he was standing in line to buy a hotdog at Miami’s Bobby Maduro Stadium.

“The guy came up to me after and asked if I’d autograph the ball,” Dalkowski said.

At Wilson, N.C., a fan asked Dalkowski, ”You pitching tonight?” When Dalkowski nodded yes, the guy said, “Well, I’m getting my kids out of here.”

Doug Harvey went on to become the National League’s best umpire remembers working one memorable game while Dalkowski was at Stockton. He fanned the first nine hitters he faced and was leading 2-0.

“Facing the 10th guy, his first pitch was 40 feet up the screen,” Harvey said. “He never got the ball over the plate after that. When they took him out it was 2-2, the bases were loaded and he still hadn’t given up a hit.”

In 1957, he pitched 62 innings, fanned 121 and won only once, because he walked 129 and threw 39 wild pitches.

At Kingsport, that year, he pitched a no-hitter, fanning 24 Bluefield hitters. But he walked 18 and lost 8-4.

Pitching a game for Stockton in 1960, he struck out 19 and allowed only four hits, but walked nine and lost 8-3 to Reno.

In 1965 with Kennewick, Wash., Dalkowski fanned Rick Monday -- who had signed a then-record bonus of $104,000 -- four times. Each time Dalkowski would mutter, “$104,000, my ass.”

“Guys would get off the bus and the first question they’d ask was, ‘What night is Dalkowski pitching?’” Gillick remembered. “A lot of them would decide to miss the game with Dalkowski-itis.”

While his off-the-field battle with alcohol was one reason for Dalkowski’s control problems, there also was the more basic factor of the movement on his pitches.

“He wasn’t wild in and out,” Gillick said. “He was wild up and down. His ball would rise so much, he couldn’t control it. It would rise over the catcher and the hitter.”

Suggested solutions were endless. Successful solutions were not so plentiful.

“They told me to aim at the catcher’s shin guards instead of his mitt, since my ball rose,” Dalkowski said. “That didn’t work, so they told me to aim for the dirt in front of the plate, then the edge of the grass in front of the plate.”

Players can be cruel when it comes to another’s deficiencies. What did they say to Dalkowski as he regularly walked the bases loaded?

“I’d walk a couple and hear them saying, ‘Here we go again,’ “ Dalkowski recalled.

The most frustrating thing for pitching coaches was that, according to Gillick, Dalkowski had “great mechanics. There wasn’t much wrong with his delivery. He was very smooth.”

Earl Weaver wasn’t known for patience when he managed Baltimore. But in 1962 at Elmira, Weaver, a young manager, and Dalkowski, in his sixth pro season, were together.

“I had my best year under Weaver,” Dalkowski said. He was 7-10 with 114 walks and 192 strikeouts in 160 innings. His ERA was 3.04, two runs per game lower than his previous best season.

“Earl stuck with me -- I liked him,” Dalkowski said.

The next March, Dalkowski threw six hitless innings with the Orioles and was told he had made the team.

On March 23, he took over in the sixth. He fanned Roger Maris and Elston Howard. Then Hector Lopez singled. Facing Phil Linz, Dalkowski felt something pop in his elbow.

Those were the pre-MRI days. He didn’t head north with the Orioles, was sent to Rochester instead and never got close again.

Dalkowski played with future Orioles Boog Powell, Dave McNally, Chuck Estrada, Andy Etchebarren and Cal Ripken, former Orioles manager. Who does Dalkowski hear from now?

“Ray Youngdahl, Frank Zupo and Pat Gillick,” Dalkowski said. Ripken was a dour baseball lifer who never liked anything and seldom gave anyone a compliment.

“Steve Dalkowski was the hardest thrower I ever, ever saw,” Ripken said.

In 1958, Dalkowski threw a pitch -- high, wide and handsome -- through the backstop of the Wilson, N.C., grandstand.

“I was back in Wilson in 1975 scouting for the Orioles,” Ripken said. “First thing I did was check to see if the hole was still there. It was.”

Huber, Dalkowski’s high school coach, visits him each Sunday. The two walk to St. John Lutheran Church.

“A convalescent home can be very depressing,” the former coach said. “We walk, stop after church. Some people ask for autographs. Lately he has been very good with his responses.

“I shoot questions at him and he fills in the blanks.”

Huber had lost touch with the flame-thrower for almost 30 years.

“I used to correspond with his wife before she passed away,” Huber said. “Steve’s situation is unfortunate. Things were starting to get better, then he lost his wife.

“His sister really helped him.”

Huber and Dalkowski attend Double-A New Britain and University of Connecticut Huskies games. UCONN is coached by one of Dalkowski’s former catchers, Andy Baylock.

“I coached him in high school, so it’s the least I can do,” Huber said, adhering to the ‘I coach you for a season, I coach you for life’ philosophy.

Dalkowski has support now, as evidenced by the pose sister and brother strike for a photographer.

Steve Dalkowski is back home.

And now it’s time for the ultimate question: How fast was Dalkowski, really?

Well, one time the Orioles tried to find out. But this was before radar guns. They took Dalkowski to the Aberdeen S.D. Army Proving Grounds. There they clocked his fastball at 98.6 mph.

Not bad. But nothing really special by today’s standards, right?

Well, consider the circumstances.

On the night he was clocked, Dalkowski approached the 99-mph mark after throwing more than 150 pitches the night before. And he was clocked throwing off flat surface, not a mound.

It took an hour -- an hour -- of Dalkowski throwing fire for him to locate a single pitch in the area where the electrical timing device could function properly.

As soon as they got the one reading -- 98.6 mph -- the Orioles called it quits.

LASTING IMPRESSIONS

“I’ve umpired Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Don Drysdale, Jim Maloney, Tom Seaver, Juan Marichal and Dwight Gooden. They all could bring it, but nobody could bring it like Steve Dalkowski.” -- Former ump Doug Harvey.

“He was the greatest and he was the wildest. First time I ever saw him was in 1960 at spring training. His first pitch hit the top bar of the batting cage, 15 feet high.” -- Harry Dunlop, manager at Stockton in 1964.

“I never saw anyone throw the ball as fast. How did I hit against him? I didn’t. I watched. I was 17 and scared.” -- Blue Jays manager Tim Johnson.

“Steve Dalkowski introduced me to the fear factor in baseball when we were in the Eastern League.” -- St. Louis manager Tony La Russa.

STEVE DALKOWSKI FILE

Born: June 3, 1939, New Britain, Conn.; Throws: Left. Height: 5-10, Weight: 170

YEAR CLUB LEAGUE G IP W L H R ER BB SO ERA

1957 Kingsport Appalachian 15 62 1 8 22 68 56 129 121 8.13

1958 Knoxville South Atlantic 11 42 1 4 17 41 39 95 82 7.93

Wilson Carolina 8 14 0 1 7 19 19 38 29 12.21

Aberdeen Northern 11 62 3 5 29 50 44 112 121 6.39

1959 Aberdeen Northern 12 59 4 3 30 43 37 110 99 5.64

Pensacola Alabama-Florida 7 25 0 4 11 38 36 80 43 12.96

1960 Stockton California 32 170 7 15 105 120 97 262 262 5.14

1961 Kennewick Northwest 31 103 3 12 75 117 96 196 150 8.39

1962 Elmira Eastern 31 160 7 10 117 61 54 114 192 3.04

1963 Elmira Eastern 13 29 2 2 20 10 9 26 28 2.79

Rochester International 12 12 0 2 7 8 8 14 8 6.00

1964 Elmira Eastern 8 15 0 1 17 12 10 19 16 6.00

Stockton California 20 108 8 4 91 40 34 62 141 2.83

Columbus International 3 12 2 1 15 11 11 11 9 8.25

1965 Kennewick Northwest 16 84 6 5 84 60 48 52 62 5.14

San Jose California 6 38 2 3 35 25 20 34 33 4.74

TOTALS 236 995 46 80 682 723 618 1354 1396 5.59