Comments on: Burt Hooton

By: soundbounder

soundbounder — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:16:40 +0000

Shealives,
Oh boy,..Pete Falcone.
I didn’t realize he threw a knuckle curve. The one line I always remember about him was that he went to the same high school in Brooklyn as Sandy Koufax. And he was a lefty too!
Lindsey Nelson trying to get our hopes up!

sb1902,
I didn’t realize Mussina threw s knuckle curve as well.

By: shealives

shealives — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 02:05:44 +0000

soundbounder: During Hooten’s career, the only other pitcher I remember who threw a knuckle curve was the immortal Pete Falcone of the late ’70s Mets. Falcone was having so much fun with those horrible post-Seaver Mets that there was a story that he was thinking about quitting baseball to go into the food business when he was only about 28 years old.

By: seaver41

seaver41 — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:02:22 +0000

interestingly enough, eddie olczyk made reference to burt hooton during the usa-canada olympic hockey match last night when talking about a knuckler of a shot at brodeur

By: sb1902

sb1902 — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 23:21:09 +0000

I think Mike Mussina had the most famous knuckle curve. I believe that used to be his signature pitch, maybe some Orioles fans might correct me if I’m wrong. I particularly remember Mussina being dominate in the ’97 playoffs with it, striking out 15 Indians one game and ten the next start:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CLE/CLE199710110.shtml

By: Josh Wilker

Josh Wilker — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 21:32:19 +0000

Apparently, the term “knuckle curve” is occasionally used to describe a pitch thrown by several current major leaguers, but that non-knuckling pitch, also called a “spike curve,” is not the same as Hooton’s pitch, which was more of a geniune unholy mating of a knuckleball and a curve. There’s some info on wikipedia about it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuckle_curve

By: soundbounder

soundbounder — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 21:15:59 +0000

IIRC, the announcers would always make note of his Knuckle Curve.
I can’t say I have ever heard of another pitcher who threw that pitch.

By: Josh Wilker

Josh Wilker — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 14:04:53 +0000

Similarly, I’ll always associate the (already tough to stomach) 2009 Yankees WS win with the camera catching A-Rod closing one of his nostrils with his finger to blast a sizable loogie out of his other nostril. Yechh.

By: blankemon

blankemon — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 05:30:09 +0000

Forgive me, but whenever I think of Happy Hooton, all I can think of is that the network cameras caught him picking his nose in the dugout during a 1981 WS game. It made me laugh – didn’t take the sting out of the Yankees losing, but I still think of it and chuckle.

By: johnq11

johnq11 — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 22:17:09 +0000

Sb1902,

good call about the “look” on Hooton’s face. You’re right he’s about 25 years old yet he would fit in perfectly at Kelsey’s Tavern.

I remember his 1981 strat-o-matic card being a pretty good card. He was third in the N.L. in ERA and 4th in ERA+ with a 147.

By: sb1902

sb1902 — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 21:26:45 +0000

That expression on Hooten’s face is priceless. He looks like an extra from a scene in the neighborhood bar on “All In The Family.”

Hooton didn’t strike out a lot of guys considering he was from Texas. I remember his ’81 season as being good, but it was better than I remembered. Dodgers had some voodoo going on that year with him and Valenzuela. I know ERA+ is supposed to capture park effects, but I always felt it didn’t capture it all, and after Wrigley, Dodger Stadium must have felt like paradise for Burt.