OK, The Common Man will bite. He’s a sucker for when Rob throws out one of his mysteries (first George Strickland, then Ted Abernathy, now this), and yesterday he started wondering about Gene Bearden, a rookie sensation for the Indians in 1948, who won 20 games and quickly faded into obscurity. Rob writes, “Most knuckleball pitchers age well. Bearden peaked as a rookie.” According to the stories passed down by Eddie Robinson and others, Bearden lost his effectiveness when batters began laying off his knuckler, but Rob’s not having it, “By my count (because there's no source for it), Bearden gave up a .245 batting average on balls in play in 1948. That seems like an exceptionally low figure, even for a knuckleball pitcher in 1948…. He was blessed with good luck in that one season.”So how much was luck and how much was Bearden? Did he really fall off because other players got wise to his knuckler?
