The Guardian
Steve Dalkowski: What is the life and mystery of throwing a baseball flame?
Many believe that the left side was the fastest way to take the left side socks. But his career – and life – was cut short before it could affect Steve Dalkovsky, a career minor-leguer who may well have been the fastest (and wildest) figure in baseball history, died in April at the age of 80. Troubles from Covid-19. And yet, in part. Due to a missing detail, his legend is probably alive, forever. A book and a documentary – both of which were working well before Dalkowski’s death – when Dalkowski, who had alcohol-related dementia, lived in his New Britain, Connecticut, where he became a phenomenon more than 60 years ago. The Untold Story of the Fastest Pitcher, and the documentary, Far from Home: Steve Dalkowski’s Story, carefully tries to clarify, and breaks through, many of the myths about Dalkowski. Years. Nowadays, every sport item is bulk up to every pitch, or play, and plenty of video exists. It wasn’t always that way. Tom Chiapata, a native of Tom Necticut, who took 30 years to put together the documentary, was unable to expose Dalkowski’s pitching film in a game. “This is the last time we’ll talk about an American sports legend,” the pitching coach, who co-authored the book with Brian Weekender, Bill Dembsky and Alex Thomas, told the Guardian. “But he also fantasizes like all of us individuals.” Indeed, there is a lot of legend about Dalkowski. Hundreds of newspaper articles were written about Dalkowski, but Vikendra says most of them contain errors. Chiappetta, who was “barely scratching the surface” with his documentary, says Dalkowski’s “legend continues.” One reason is that people don’t get enough about his life. “This is what we know: Dalkowski, left, was 5 feet 10 in and 170 lbs, not particularly the presence of a scary mound. But he was surprisingly fast and wild, with 1 balls324 strikeouts – and 1,666 balls – from 1957. There were more than 956 innings during 1965. He made 262 strikeouts and 262 walks for Class C Stockton ports in 1960. His four-seam fastball ball, called his “radio pitch” because the batters could hear it, Can’t, it was practically obscure … when it strikes the home plate, but, like so many pitches above the batter’s head, it also went into the stands, it was said that it once hit the fan while waiting for a hot dog. He was known for throwing pure heat, but there was no way to measure how fast he threw. People swear he threw 110 miles in an hour, maybe even faster. (New York Yankees reliever Aroldis Chapman has a record of documentation.) Is: 105.8 miles.) “It’s definitely part of the mystery,” Chiyapta said. “They just don’t have the technology to prove it at the time.” Although many initial attempts were made to measure the speed of his pitches, Dalkovsky ended his pro career almost a decade ago, before the radar gun was first used for the Hulki fame pitcher, Nolan Ryan. And Dalkowski’s career was seen in the spring of 1963. At the same time, while Baltimore was all left to make room with Rialos, Dalkowski felt a pop in his left elbow, possibly a torn ligament, although his injury was never diagnosed. (A major pouring vessel, Tommy John, underwent groundbreaking reconstructive elbow surgery in 1974, which is now routinely used to repair such injuries.) “Nuke” based. Lalosh, played by Tim Robbins on Dalkowski in the classic 1988 baseball film Bull Durham. But there was a decisive difference in their stories. Bull Durham ends with Lalosh in the big league, which is likely to be polished by the hard lessons learned in minors. But Dalkowski never entered a match higher than the Triple-A level in a regular-season game. He was an alcoholic, and his life, like his radio pitch, was out of control. And that too became a part of their legend. In those days, sports were not as scientific as they are today. There were no pitch counts to feed the clock hand. Dalkowski once threw 283 pitches in a single game – nowadays 120 is considered excessive. Managers were always tired of it and often kept it warm and settled. “The pitchers were expected to pitch back nine innings – ‘Come on! Be a man! Vikander said. Very little time was also spent on mechanics on the strategy of how to approach the batters. Vikendra, for example, said that half of all hitters now take the first pitch, so Dalkowski would have just given the advantage of throwing a curb throw for the first pitch strike. “There was information that things could have worked out for Steve,” Vikander said. Although Dalkowski briefly forged a father-son relationship with Earl Weaver, who would later become the veteran manager of the Riyals, then virtually no attention was paid to the athlete’s mental state, especially to those struggling with high expectations. “He was not mentally adjusted to deal with it,” Weekender said of Dalkowski’s fame. “He had no coaching,” Chiapta said. No baseball coaching, no life coaching, no coaching of anything. If it were to come through Bezab now, it would be a whole world. After leaving the base left, he took strange jobs, disappeared from family and friends, sometimes sleeping in the street, next to a trash can or there. He was found alone, unaccompanied in Christmas Eve, 1992, in California. Still, he had a piece of scrap paper with the phone number of ex-partner Frank Zuppo and his life could change because of the many others he got help from his sister, Pete and the Besb Assl support team. “I’m just ashamed to go down the drain, and I don’t have to do this to stop this Mickey Mouse drinking stuff from coming up with my acting,” Dalkowski said in an earlier interview with Chiapta in 1992, which included a documentary he added: ” Do you know who I hurt the most? God bless her soul – my sister. I cry about it at night. That’s too bad. I had everything on the plate. I just threw it in the toilet, and I think I flushed it. “The happy part of his story is that Dalkowski spent the last 26 years of his life in an old-age care facility in New Britain, where as a local child he became an immense celebrity who became a small ligier with a shining potential – a small potential.” “He’s got 26 years back in his life,” Chiapta said. “He’s a lot longer than baseball.” Plus, Dalkowski stopped pitching 55 years ago. “We’re looking for guys who played ‘D’. [level] Ball with him in 1957, ”says Vikendra. The initial response to the book, Vikendra said, has been “stellar”, which makes him optimistic that more information about it can be found and sent to the book’s website. Chiapta is sure there is an old film – somewhere – of Dalco pitching. “The story just kind of continues,” Chiapta says. If a film clip comes to the surface, perhaps from the dusty attic, it is possible to measure the speed of Dalkowski’s terribly fast, four-seam fastb ball. If we know for sure that he has thrown less than 105.8 miles, his legend will surely be reduced. But, again, what if the clip shows that Dalco throws up too fast?
