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Why R.A. Dickey, Baseball’s “Guy On The Couch,” Can Be The Unlikely Hero Of The Post-Steroids Era

I remember being a kid and watching Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and their giant heads compete for the home run crown. Baseball, and its promises of long balls and moon shots and history being made, was electric and watchable.

Fast forward to 2007, the Mitchell Report, and the very public beginning to baseball’s steroid saga. All of those historical moments now have an asterisk, and America’s pastime has a tarnished and, some would say, broken reputation with many fans.

Today, everyone wonders if the Mitchell Report actually fixed anything. Ryan Braun’s PED suspension (even though it was later overturned) only brought back questions regarding baseball’s tidiness. The miraculously boring trials of Bonds and Roger Clemens, like a stale fart hanging in the air, also helped keep steroids in the news cycle.

But in guys like R.A. Dickey, baseball has found an organic solution to its problem.

In the city that never stops moving, Dickey almost seems to be going in slow motion. His knuckleball can come in as fast as 85 (one of the fastest knucklers we’ve ever seen) and as slow as 65 (arcane enough to draw awkward swings-and-misses from batters). But of all the questions asked about Dickey, of how he came to be, if young pitchers will model themselves after him, and whether his success is sustainable, one question is never (and will never) be asked: are his numbers steroid-driven?

Nope. Just look at this fucking guy.

He’s an unassuming, 6-foot-2 righty from Tennessee, and his hair pours out of his baseball cap, and he has a chin-strap, and a goatee, and holy moly he looks like he just wandered off the 7 Train right outside Shea Stadium.

He is not Herculean by any stretch of the imagination, because he doesn’t need to be: a knuckleball has more to do with grip and repetition than a large bicep. His start to this season (11-1, 2.00 ERA, and 103 strikeouts and 21 walks in 99 innings pitched) is one of the best 14-game starts a pitcher has ever jumped out to. He’s being compared to guys like Randy Johnson and Sandy Koufax. He just fired two-consecutive one-hitters.

But maybe “fired” isn’t even the right word. There is nothing quick or flashy about Dickey’s game. A fastball that doesn’t touch 90 may seem quick to hitters, but only because it comes across over 20 miles per hour faster than his slowest knuckler.

Dickey’s appeal is almost as befuddling as some of the pitches he throws. Maybe it’s the fact that he looks like the guy on the couch that adds to his allure.

Or maybe it’s that he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro this past offseason. R.A. does lots of weird things like that. And we love him for it.

Success is not bred overnight, nor is reputation. Dickey, at the tender age of 37, had to tinker with his mechanics for years to land on his current pitching repertoire. The 18th overall pick in the 1996 MLB Draft by the Rangers, he debuted in the majors in 2001, and then spent the next eight years walking the tight rope of the major and minor leagues in Texas, before finally landing in New York in 2010.

But that wasn’t before an intervention from Buck Showalter. In 2006, Showalter– then the manager coach of the Rangers — suggested Dickey start throwing a knuckleball. While the changeover was not met with immediate success, the results are sparkling now.

The same sentiment will most likely be true of baseball. R.A. Dickey will not be a one-man crusade that cleans up the game, and wipes baseball’s slate clean — he’s a pitcher, for one. He’ll also never achieve the widespread acclaim necessary to wipe any sort of slate. He’s cultish, pure and simple, which is a big part of his appeal.

But it is with schlubby, bearded weirdos like R.A. Dickey — guys who looked like they just wandered in off the 7 train, or just spent a few weeks on your couch, but who definitely, absolutely, have never taken any sort of steroid (or cream, or rub… or protein shake, for that matter) — that baseball can slowly begin to build towards the future.

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