Spin-free zone

Knuckleball!

(2012)

Even if I didn't owe R. A. Dickey some of my best days at the ballpark the past couple of years, this documentary--starring Dickey, Tim Wakefield, Phil Niekro, and Charlie Hough, with a solid supporting performance by Jim Bouton--would be a delight.

If I had a complaint, it would be that the physics of the "circus pitch" gets short shrift, but the filmmakers are more interested in getting inside the heads of the keepers of the fluttering flame, and they accomplish that beautifully, following Wakefield on his agonizing quest for win number 200 and Dickey through the season that established him as a star, ahead of his Cy Young Award season, and relying on the retired knuckleballers for the long view.