My Kingdom for a Horse

The White Sox went through nine relievers in losing Thursday, and I couldn’t help but think of Hoyt Wilhelm, the HOF knuckleballer who spent six seasons on the South Side, starting at the age of 40 in 1963. That’s FOUR-OH, folks. At the age of 41/42, Wilhelm appeared in 73 games for the Sox in 1964 with a 1.99 ERA in 131.1 innings pitched. That’s right, 131.1 innings. The next year, 1965, Wilhelm’s innings went up—to 144—while his ERA went down, to 1.81, in 66 games. In 1967, Wilhelm logged 89 innings with a 1.31 ERA. A day before his 45th birthday, he pitched in both games of a doubleheader, one inning in the first game and 3.1 in the second. In 1964, Wilhelm went as many as six innings in an appearance; five innings in 1965; and four innings in 1967. In ’65, Wilhelm teamed with knuckleballer Eddie Fisher, who threw 165.1 innings in 82 games, good for a 15-7 record and 2.40 ERA; Fisher had outings of five and six innings. In ’67, Wilhelm had Wilbur Wood. You can pretty much sense a pattern here, yes? As Sox fans wait on pins and needles to see if rookie fireballer Garrett Crochet needs Tommy John surgery, they might ask themselves why their team doesn’t go back into the past to meet the challenge of relief pitching. Wilhelm’s gone, Fisher and Wood are retired (though, who knows, they might be coaxed into trying a comeback). But the pitch they threw is still out there. It floats like a butterfly and breaks for a strike, or used to at 35th and Shields.