Out of all the great moments I’ve had so far covering the Tribeca Film Festival, by far the most exciting was the Knuckleball! world premiere as part of the Tribeca Drive-In series at the North Cove Harbor in the World Financial Center Plaza. If you have never gone to one of these Drive-In events I highly recommend that you do: not only are they free, but seeing an outdoor movie surrounded by the towering buildings of lower Manhattan is an unbeatable experience.
Four of the film’s subjects — knuckleball pitchers R.A. Dickey, Tim Wakefield, Jim Bouton, and Charlie Hough — were at the premiere. Though there was limited time for questions with them, I managed to speak briefly with Dickey and Wakefield. Leading up to the screening they were teaching children how to throw knuckleballs, so in good conscience I couldn’t possibly tear them away from giving some kids their chances to learn a trick or two from pro ballplayers. I also got to speak with Annie Sundberg, who co-directed the film with Ricki Stern.
Annie Sundberg
[Co-director]
MOVIE BUZZERS: First, why a documentary about knuckleballers?
SUNDBERG: Good question. Ricki and I, we do character-based films generally and we were looking to do a sports film and this project came to us as something to consider. It was really a fast project for us that we really don’t know much about. We’re collectively probably your average baseball fan, but we’re not rabid and I couldn’t tell you the first thing about why a knuckleball does what it does. But the producers, Chris Schomer and Dan Cogan, brought this to us and we started out at spring training [2011] with a really interesting heartfelt meeting with R.A. Dickey, and we were really struck with his own journey. Here’s a guy who came to his success point late in his career, and there’s a great character story there. Then we looked at this brotherhood around the knuckleball pitch and we realized this is a film that incorporates three main characters: Tim Wakefield, who recently retired, of the Red Sox, R.A. Dickey of the Mets, and you have this third character, the knuckleball itself, which is an art, it’s a passion, it’s a confounding pitch that is really mentored by a lot of people and for us there were layers there that were really appealing for us as filmmakers to explore.
MOVIE BUZZERS: Do you have a guess as to why more pitchers don’t throw the knuckleball?
SUNDBERG: I think the knuckleball is… as Tim would say “we’re the anchors, not the ace of the staff.” It’s not a very well-valued pitch in the marketplace, it’s a pitch that if you look at generally the careers of a knuckleballer they’re not earning the big early fame and money. But their reward is that they get to stay in the game longer than anyone else. Most people choose the knuckleball they weren’t either good enough for a position, but basically people come to the knuckleball as you see in the film almost out of desperation — it’s the last chance to stay in the game. We learned R.A. has a different approach, R.A. Dickey, as he puts it, wants to put religion to save the pitch so that it is a first-choice option for some people. But as I said, these are the people who are the insurance policies for the team, they eat the innings, sometimes they’re the closers, very often they’re the relievers, and it’s rare that they become the heroes or the starters. So Tim Wakefield had a remarkable career that just ended, Phil Niekro is a remarkable Hall of Famer, Charlie Hough had a great career. But these are guys who are not known for their speed, they’re not the thoroughbreds.
MOVIE BUZZERS: Now you focused on Wakefield, who’s from the Boston Red Sox, and Dickey, who’s from the New York Mets. Can you give the final word: what’s the better sports town, Boston or New York?
SUNDBERG: [Laughs] I think that’s a really hard question to answer because I think both fanbases will kill each other. [Whispers] Thankfully it wasn’t the Yankees and the Red Sox. I think there’s an irony right now that the Mets are doing well in the league, and the Red Sox aren’t. But I think each fan group are just as rabid, but remarkably there are a lot of Red Sox fans here in New York.
Tim Wakefield
[Pittsburgh Pirates, 1992-1993, Boston Red Sox, 1995-2011]
MOVIE BUZZERS: How did you get involved in this project?
WAKEFIELD: Chris Schomer and some other people got in touch with me earlier in spring training last year and wanted to do this project on the knuckleball and I was all for it. You know, it’s a pitch that is definitely a dying art, and hopefully the film can bring some light to it and give kids that can’t throw a 95 to 100 mile per hour a chance to continue their careers after high school or college.
MOVIE BUZZERS: Yesterday you were at the 100th anniversary celebration of Fenway. Could you share your thoughts on that?
WAKEFIELD: It was a very emotional moment. You know, the whole ceremony was touching and being able to share that with so many Red Sox alum from the 40s all the way to the present and I saw a lot of ex-teammates I haven’t seen in years. What was special about it for me was being able to wheel out two of the biggest legends in Red Sox history in Bobby Doerr and Johnny Pesky and seeing their emotions of celebrating the 100th anniversary of Fenway Park was phenomenal.
R.A. Dickey
[Texas Rangers, 2001, 2003-2006, Seattle Mariners, 2008, Minnesota Twins, 2009, New York Mets 2010-Present]
MOVIE BUZZERS: How did you get involved in this project?
DICKEY: Well, Break Thru Films had a vision for telling the story about not only the knuckleball but the people who throw the pitch, and they wrote a treatment for it, showed me the treatment, and I was in.
MOVIE BUZZERS: What do you hope the audience gets out of this documentary?
DICKEY: I think first and foremost I hope they get an education about what the knuckleball is, what it’s used for, how difficult it is to master the throw, the lifestyle you have to endure to be able to achieve throwing the pitch well, and then secondly a respect for the pitch and what it can be. I think it’s a pitch that is oftentimes misrepresented, but this documentary will go a long way in helping with that.
MOVIE BUZZERS: So over the last few months you climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, you released a book, you wrote a documentary, and it’s the start of a new baseball season. Does all this feel a little unreal?
DICKEY: Well, it doesn’t necessarily feel unreal, it feels actually fairly organic. I’ve been working on the book for a long time, that was something that eventually came to fruition after a couple of good years helped facilitate that, and as for the mountain I always wanted to climb Kilimanjaro. But this is a little bit of a surreal feeling this Tribeca Film Festival and being part of a documentary, that’s all a little bit much.
MOVIE BUZZERS: Now you’re known to be a big Star Wars fan…
DICKEY: I am.
MOVIE BUZZERS: And you are, right now, the last Major League pitcher who throws the knuckleball…
DICKEY: I see where you’re going… [laughs]
MOVIE BUZZERS: Do you feel like Luke Skywalker, last of the Jedi, right now?
DICKEY: Oh man, no, I don’t — I’m hoping for a Padawan!
After some brief remarks by the producers, directors, and subjects, we were treated to the screening of Knuckleball! You can check out my review of the documentary here, but suffice to say if you’re any kind of baseball fan you should see this movie as soon as possible. And thanks to Tribeca for such a great evening!
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