Phil Niekro: 1939-2020

 

A collage of my Phil Niekro baseball cards. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor)

My signed photo of Joe and Phil Niekro-I bought it on eBay, I never met either Niekro brother. (Photo by Mark C. Taylor)

Phil Niekro in 1987, just before the last start of his major league career. He still looks like he means business, even at age 48.

2020 has taken yet another baseball Hall of Famer from us, as Phil Niekro passed away on December 26^th at the age of 81. Phil Niekro was one of my favorite players, thanks in part to the 1988 book The Niekro Files, which is comprised of the letters that Phil and Joe Niekro sent to each other during the 1987 baseball season. I read The Niekro Files sometime during my childhood, and since then the Niekros have been on my list of favorite players. I never met either Phil or Joe Niekro in person, unfortunately.

Both Phil and Joe had 20+ year careers in the major leagues: Joe with 22, Phil with 24. Counting the minor leagues, Phil Niekro had a 28-year professional career in baseball. That’s simply amazing. Together, Phil and Joe won 539 major league games, a record for two brothers, with Phil accounting for 318 wins, and Joe adding 221 of his own. In 1987, the Niekros broke the record of Gaylord and Jim Perry, who won 529 games.

Phil Niekro didn’t achieve the same level of fame as some of the other pitchers of his generation. Niekro never played in a World Series, never won a Cy Young Award, and won 20 games in a season “only” 3 times. (Joe Niekro finally appeared in a World Series with the Minnesota Twins in 1987. He threw 2 scoreless innings.) Phil had the misfortune of pitching for the Atlanta Braves when they were mostly a second division team, and he ended up losing a lot of games: 274, to be exact, 5^th on the all-time list. Niekro had the ignominious distinction of leading the league in losses 4 years in a row, from 1977-1980. Ouch.

However, with advance statistics and sabermetrics, it’s clear to see how great Phil Niekro was. Niekro accumulated 95.9 WAR, which is 35^th all-time, and 97 pitching WAR, good for 11^th all-time. Niekro’s 97 pitching WAR puts him just below Christy Mathewson, and just ahead of some of the other great pitchers of Niekro’s generation, like Bert Blyleven, Gaylord Perry, Steve Carlton, Nolan Ryan, and Ferguson Jenkins.

Because he spent five years in the minor leagues before making his big-league debut, Niekro only had 31 wins by the time he turned 30 on April 1, 1969. In contrast, Tom Seaver had won 146 games by his 30^th birthday, and Steve Carlton had won 133. But Niekro quickly made up for lost time, as he set a career high by winning 23 games in 1969, as the Braves won the NL West. However, in the very first NLCS, they were swept by Seaver’s Miracle Mets.

Niekro remained the workhouse of the Braves’ rotation throughout the 1970’s. Because Niekro’s main pitch was the knuckleball, which puts very little strain on the arm, he was able to average 288 innings during the decade of the 1970’s. By the end of the decade, the Braves were far from contention, and in 1979 Niekro had a truly odd season, as he led the NL in both wins and losses, in addition to also leading the league in games started, complete games, innings, hits, home runs, walks, hit by pitch, and batters faced! Phil tied his brother Joe for the league lead in wins in 1979, which is pretty cool.

After the 1983 season, Phil Niekro was released by the team that had originally signed him 25 years before. The Yankees signed Niekro as a free agent, and he quickly rebounded, going 16-8 with a 3.09 ERA in 1984. Niekro was now 16 wins away from 300. In 1985, Niekro won his 15^th game on September 8^th, leaving him just one win away from 300. But the next 4 starts he remained winless. According to my 1986 The Complete Handbook of Baseball, Niekro “destroyed phone booth after one of his unsuccessful attempts at No. 300.” It’s hard for me to imagine Phil Niekro destroying a phone booth, but hey, winning 300 games is a big deal. It all came down to Niekro’s final start of the season, against the playoff-bound Toronto Blue Jays. Niekro came roaring back, firing an 8-0 shutout, winning game number 300, and becoming the oldest pitcher to ever hurl a shutout. Niekro didn’t even throw a knuckleball until the very last batter he faced.

Niekro pitched well past his 48^th birthday, an amazing feat in baseball. In fact, Niekro won 121 games after his 40^th birthday. In 1987, pitching for the Cleveland Indians, Niekro and Steve Carlton were teammates, and they became the first 300-game winners to appear in the same game, pitching for the same team. At the end of 1987, Niekro even got to go home again, as he returned to the Atlanta Braves for the final game of his big-league career. Niekro pitched 3 innings and gave up 5 runs and didn’t factor in the decision.

Phil Niekro had a great career in the major leagues, and from every story I’ve heard he seemed to be a really nice guy. RIP to one of baseball’s greats.