Steve Dalkowski
Stephen Louis Dalkowski Jr. (June 3, 1939[1] – April 19, 2020), nicknamed Dalko,[2] was an American left-handed pitcher.
Screenwriter and film director Ron Shelton played in the Baltimore Orioles minor league organization soon after Dalkowski.
His 1988 film Bull Durham features a character named Ebby Calvin "Nuke" LaLoosh (played by Tim Robbins) who is based loosely on the tales Shelton was told about Dalkowski.
In 1970, Sports Illustrated's Pat Jordan wrote, "Inevitably, the stories outgrew the man, until it was no longer possible to distinguish fact from fiction.
"[5] A full biography of Dalkowski was published in 2020, Dalko: The Untold Story of Baseball's Fastest Pitcher.
[8] In "Sudden" Sam McDowell's foreword to the book, he writes: "I will tell you this about Steve Dalkowski with absolute certainty, after seeing and listening to his fastball, and witnessing some very wild pitches: I truly believe he threw a lot harder than I did!
Accurate measurements at the time were difficult to make, but the consensus is that Dalkowski regularly threw well above 100 miles per hour (160 km/h).
"I hit my left elbow on my right knee so often, they finally made me a pad to wear", recalled Dalkowski.
In comparison, Randy Johnson currently holds the major league record for strikeouts per nine innings in a season with 13.41.
During the 1960s under Earl Weaver, then the manager for the Orioles' double-A affiliate in Elmira, New York, Dalkowski's game began to show improvement.
[16] Weaver believed that Dalkowski had experienced such difficulty keeping his game under control because he did not have the mental capacity.
Most sources say that while throwing a slider to Phil Linz, he felt something pop in his left elbow, which turned out to be a severe muscle strain.
Some uncertainty over the cause of his injury exists, however, with other sources contending that he damaged his elbow while throwing to first after fielding a bunt from Yankees pitcher Jim Bouton.
When he returned in 1964, Dalkowski's fastball had dropped to 90 miles per hour (140 km/h), and midway through the season he was released by the Orioles.
[21] Radar guns, which were used for many years in professional baseball, did not exist when Dalkowski was playing, so the only evidence supporting this level of velocity is anecdotal.
Andy Etchebarren, a catcher for Dalkowski at Elmira, described his fastball as "light" and fairly easy to catch.
According to Etchebarren his wilder pitches usually went high, sometimes low; "Dalkowski would throw a fastball that looked like it was coming in at knee level, only to see it sail past the batter's eyes".
Another story says that in 1960 at Stockton, California, he threw a pitch that broke umpire Doug Harvey's mask in three places, knocking him 18 feet (5 m) back and sending him to a hospital for three days with a concussion.
The only recorded evidence of his pitching speed stems from 1958, when Dalkowski was sent by the Orioles to Aberdeen Proving Ground, a military installation.
[22] Earl Weaver, who had years of exposure to both pitchers, said, "[Dalkowski] threw a lot faster than Ryan.
"[16] The hardest throwers in baseball currently are recognized as Aroldis Chapman and Jordan Hicks, who have each been clocked with the fastest pitch speed on record at 105.1 mph (169 km/h).
[17] Poor health in the 1980s prevented Dalkowski from working altogether, and by the end of the decade he was living in a small apartment in California, penniless and suffering from alcohol-induced dementia.
At some point during this time, Dalkowski married a motel clerk named Virginia, who moved him to Oklahoma City in 1993.
