Ideal Roadside: Steven Wright Details Fascinating Journey To All-Star Nod In Players’ Tribune Piece

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Steven Wright Details Fascinating Journey To All-Star Nod In Players’ Tribune Piece

Perhaps no player took a longer road to the 2016 Major League Baseball All-Star Game than Boston Red Sox pitcher Steven Wright.

Wright, who on Tuesday earned the first All-Star selection of his big league career, detailed that journey Wednesday in a fascinating first-person piece for The Players’ Tribune.

Beginning with a story about his days as a Cleveland Indians minor leaguer making $15,000 a year and living in Section 8 housing — “The Ocho,” as he called it — the 31-year-old right-hander describes the trials and tribulations he’s endured throughout his decade in professional baseball and how embracing the knuckleball ultimately helped save a doomed career.

The pitch, Wright explained, used to be nothing more than a gimmick he’d use while messing around in the bullpen. It wasn’t until 2010, when his prospects of breaking through with the Indians appeared bleak, that he decided, at the behest of his Double-A pitching coach, to add it to his in-game repertoire.

“When the Indians passed on me for spring training and the 40-man that season,” Wright wrote, “they said there were two things I didn’t have: the velocity to come out of the bullpen, and a true out pitch.

“Coach (Greg) Hibbard wanted me to use the knuckleball as my out pitch.

“So instead of giving up on baseball after that 2010 season, I worked on the knuckleball.”

It took another three years and a trade to the Red Sox for Wright to finally make his major league debut, which he did in 2013, and another three after that for him to secure a permanent spot in a big league rotation. During that time, he worked extensively with a trio of ex-major league knuckleballers: Tom Candiotti, Charlie Hough and Tim Wakefield, the latter of whom he credits for the breakout season he currently is enjoying.

“(I)f I had never been traded to the Red Sox — where I get to work so closely with Wake — I don’t know that I’d be where I am right now,” wrote Wright, who ranks second in the American League with a 2.42 ERA through 16 starts this season.

“Wake was with the Red Sox for 19 years, and he always reminds me that there were maybe only four seasons where he went into spring training knowing he was going to be one of the five starters. Maybe he’d be in the ‘pen. Maybe he’d be off the roster. He never really knew.

“That’s what happens when you make a living throwing a trick pitch.”

We highly recommend you read the full piece, which you can do by clicking the link below.