Last weekend, thanks to a timely email from Mike, I was able to catch a screening of Knuckleball! at this year's Independent Film Festival Boston . If you’re not familiar with the premise, the movie, which was written, directed, and produced by Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg, walks through the mystique that surrounds the knuckleball as a pitch, as well as the stigmas that accompany those who have built careers on throwing it. The film opens with Tim Wakefield, whose soft-spoken dialogue sets up the concepts that the rest of the movie goes on to explore: the extreme highs and extreme lows of being a Major League Baseball player, the heavy doubts that can weigh down a young buck as much as a seasoned veteran, and how being a knuckleball pitcher amplifies all of this for the individual.

One of the movie's strengths is how well it presents Wakefield and the now torch-bearing R.A. Dickey, both as people and as ballplayers. As baseball fans, we’re never as close to knowing our idols as we think, but we can rightly form our opinions based on their in-game demeanor and post-game comments and behavior. Wakfield comes off as modest, yet determined, sometimes to the point of stubborness, which is how he’s always come off to me as a Red Sox fan. He’s the guy who would pitch in any role at any time, as long as it helped the team, but who always thought of himself as a viable starter right up until he retired. Dickey is his usual articulate self and candidly speaks about the path he has taken to the Big Leagues. Both of these guys have compelling stories, and to hear them talk firsthand about how the knuckleball was basically a lifeline for their careers is interesting. From Aaron Effing Boone to the case of the missing ulnar collateral ligament, the human element of the narrative is alive and well.

Of course, no discussion of this pitch is complete without mentions of knuckleball tosssers Phil Niekro, Charlie Hough, Wilbur Wood, Jim Bouton, and Tom Candiotti, all of whom lend their commentary to the documentary. Plenty of time is devoted to the quasi members only club that Niekro, Hough, Wakefield, and Dickey have formed and to explaining how the knuckleball gets passed down from generation to generation. This really balances out the narrative and keeps the film from falling into any kind of rut that might be caused if it had simply bounced back and forth between Dickey and Wakefield. What’s really striking about all of these men is that not one of them claims to truly understand the knuckleball, which is at the heart of learning to throw a knuckleball - at one point, it’s remarked that a knuckleballer needs “the fingers of a safecracker and the mind of a Zen Buddhist.” These guys have little control over where the pitch lands.

There’s plenty of obligatory footage and picture from old games, along with commentary from sports journalists, all woven nicely into the interviews that fill the rest of the space. The film is also solidly grounded in the present, following Wakefield through his retirement. Most of these moments are put to good use, shifting the focus back to the human element at various points. The one main criticism I have is that it would have been interesting to hear more from the other players who interact with the knuckleball. We get Derek Jeter’s and Carlos Beltran’s takes on the pitch, along with some catching commentary from Josh Thole and Doug Mirabelli (Mirabelli, gesturing toward grey patches of hair on his head,says, “These are all from Wake), but hearing more from the guys behind the dish could have fleshed out the frustration that can erupt as a result of a knuckleball that does exactly what it’s supposed to.

Overall, Knuckeball! is an engaging look less at the history of the knuckleball and more at the fine line that it forces those who wield it to walk. I enjoyed it as a baseball fan, and my girlfriend enjoyed it as a semi-fan, but there’s enough of a story here for you to justify dragging a loved one with you to the theater or to take up a night with a home viewing once it’s out on DVD.