Robert Allen Dickey has been the best pitcher in the game this season.
After Monday nights win, Dickey's record is a remarkable 11-1. His numbers are down right nasty this year. 11 wins, 2.00 ERA, 103 strikeouts, and a 0.89 WHIP (walks + hits per inning) are all tops in baseball among starting pitchers. The New York Mets are 37-32 this season, and if it wasn't for R.A. Dickey, they wouldn't be three games behind the Washington Nationals in the toughest division in the National League.
Move over Jeremy Lin and Tim Tebow, there is a new king taking over the Big Apple.
Dickey is the first pitcher in modern day baseball (since 1900) to allow one-or-fewer runs, strike out 50+ batters and walk five-or-fewer batters over five consecutive starts in a season. He has five straight starts of 0 earned runs and 8+K's. No one in America's pastime can say they have done this. He became the second pitcher to throw consecutive one-hitters with 10+ K's since 1900. He has seven straight starts with 8+ strikeouts and 2 or fewer walks. Only three other pitchers can say they have done that in this history-riched game. Sandy Koufax (1965), Curt Schilling (1997), and Randy Johnson (2001). If Dickey can do this on Sunday night he will be the only pitcher in modern day baseball to accomplish this feat. To make it even juicier, Dickey is scheduled to start ESPN's Sunday Night game against the New York Yankees. What an accomplishment that would be. His current streak of 42.2/3 innings pitched without allowing an earned run is second best in the history of the Mets' franchise. Dwight Gooden pitched 49 consecutive innings without allowing an earned run in 1985. He will try and break this record on Sunday night too.
Pretty remarkable what Dickey has accomplished this season, but his story started long before this.
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| R.A. Dickey, second from left |
He bounced around the minor leagues for 14+ seasons. After being drafted 18th overall by the Texas Rangers in 1996 he was ecstatic. After the Rangers drafted Dickey in the first round they offered him a $810,000 signing bonus, until they saw a photo on the cover of Baseball America. They noticed his arm was bent at a funny angle and they had further tests on Dickey before he inked his contract. Tests showed he had no ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching arm. After that, they reduced his signing bonus to $75,000. This was just the start for this journeyman pitcher.
Before signing with the New York Mets in 2010, he appeared in 144 big league games as a pitcher. In two-plus years since signing with the Mets he has appeared in 74 games. Robert Allen Dickey can finally say he found a home.
When I saw found a home, I am talking about more than just feeling secure as a professional Major League pitcher. His path to becoming a pitcher is a road no one should ever have to go through.
Dickey contemplated suicide just over five years ago. Not because he was unsuccessful in baseball. It was much more than that. His parents divorced when he was just a few years old. His mother was an alcoholic and dragged him into bars at age five. Dickey's family was poor growing up and he slept in abandoned warehouses as a teenager. At age eight he was sexually abused on numerous occasions by his female babysitter. During his tween years he was sexually abused, and raped, by a seventeen-year old male. R.A. Dickey lived through one of the toughest childhoods any kid could ever imagine. Just try and remember the worst thing that happened to you as a child, and picture it happening over and over again throughout your childhood.
Dickey lived with these horrific memories in the back of his head. Not even people close to him knew about his childhood. He didn't want anyone to know. His wife didn't even know about it until eight years into their marriage. He hoped it would just go away, but it never did. He would always picture his tough childhood no matter the circumstances. He knew their was only one way for this to go away. He had to tell people close to him about this. He couldn't keep it in any longer, he had to get it off his shoulders. It takes a man to face his fears, and Dickey finally faced his after keeping it inside for 20+ years. It led him to start a book, which he started in 2005. Still, he didn't tell anyone about his childhood until 2007, but the book was a way for him to get these horrific memories out from being trapped inside. The book talks about his life path and all of the struggles he has gone through growing up. On March 29th, his book, "Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity, and the Perfect Knuckleball" hit the shelves and I would strongly recommend picking it up. It is a very good book. 
It was a slow process for Dickey to get this off of his shoulders. He told his wife, his family, and his closest friends about his childhood in 2007. This is where things finally started to turn around for R.A. Dickey. If it was not for his wife, who chose to stay with Dickey after an affair and work with him to better their marriage, he would not be the person he is today. Dickey was a lost individual and his wife, Anne Dickey, could sense it. She just didn't know why until he finally confessed his horrendous childhood. Also, he credits his therapist and his Christianity, as being two blueprints into helping him be able to beat this.
Furthermore, there is one guy to thank for his success on the hill.
Current Baltimore Orioles manager, Buck Showalter, played a huge role in R.A. Dickeys life. During his time in Texas as the manager of the Rangers, he suggested Dickey try something different. He persuaded Dickey to start throwing a knuckleball. This was around 2006, and it still took Dickey years to finally master the pitch. If he didn't take Showalter's advice, he would have been a career minor-leaguer. In his first start throwing the knuckleball he got rocked. In April 2006, against the Detroit Tigers, he allowed six home-runs in 3.1/3 innings. He was sent down to the minors after this start, and did not appear in the big leagues until two years later with the Seattle Mariners. Despite the struggles trying to master the knuckleball, Dickey stayed with it. 
Now, six years after he started throwing the knuckleball, he can say he mastered it. Just ask Buck Showalter who was managing the Baltimore Orioles on Monday night. He saw it first hand. Dickey was brilliant on the hill against his former manager. R.A. Dickey had as many hits as the Baltimore Orioles. He pitched a complete game shutout allowing just one hit. He struck out 13 Orioles and only had two walks. It was one of the best pitching performances of the season. He has been pitching like this since the start of May. In his last six starts he is 6-0 with a 0.18 ERA. (Yes, you read that correctly.) He has only allowed one earned run in 48.2/3 IP during this stretch. He has 63 K's to only five walks and opponents are batting .131 against him. Pretty remarkable, and not many pitchers have ever had stretches like this one. It has been a great story for a guy who deserves it. Funny how the game of baseball works. The guy who talked him into throwing the pitch was their first hand to watch it make his team look like a bunch of little leaguers. Buck Showalter was smiling underneath that frown somewhere last night. You couldn't see it on him, but inside he had the smile of a kid at a candy store.
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