Name: Steve Dalkowski, flame-throwing figure of baseball lore, dies of coronavirus in New Britain
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Steve Dalkowski, flame-throwing figure of baseball lore, dies of coronavirus in New Britain

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AdvertisementBy Hartford CourantApr 24, 2020 at 6:43 pmSteve Dalkowski, who possessed a terrifying fastball he could not control and, though he never made the major leagues, became an enduring figure of baseball lore, died on Sunday in his hometown of New Britain.Dalkowski, a victim of COVID-19, was 80.Advertisement“He’s in a better place now,” said Patty Cain, his sister, who brought Dalkowski, suffering from alcohol-related dementia, back home to Connecticut 26 years ago. “He is resting. He had a rough couple of months.”One of the most written-about subjects in baseball history, Dalkowski was an inspiration for the character Nuke Laloosh in the film Bull Durham. The screenwriter, Ron Shelton, who played in the minor leagues in the 1960s as Dalkowski stories, many exaggerated but rooted in real events, were passed around.Advertisement“It’s the gift from the gods — the arm, the power,” Shelton wrote in 2009. “That is what haunts us. He had it all and didn’t know it. That’s why Steve Dalkowski stays in our minds. He had the equivalent of Michelangelo’s gift but could never finish a painting.”Dalkowski was a star athlete at New Britain High in the 1950s, and signed with the Orioles in 1957. Throughout his baseball career, Dalkowski compiled totals of strikeouts and walks that are almost inconceivable today. A lefthander, about 5 feet 10, he threw back-to-back no-hitters for New Britain High in April 1957, striking out 39 and walking 17 in the two games. Dalkowski struck out 24 in a single game against New London that season.Former UConn baseball coach Andy Baylock, who grew up next door to Dalkowski, caught him during their high school days. How hard could Dalkowski throw?“Heaven knows,” Baylock said, “because we didn’t have radar guns and all that stuff in those days. I just knew that my left index finger got purple, and I learned how to use ‘soft hands.’ You bring your wrist back and bend your elbow at the same time to deaden it.”Guesses rated Dalkowski’s fastball at far over 100 mph, even 120. Frank “Beauty” McGowan, a former major leaguer from Branford and a long-time scout, signed him for the Orioles that season, and Dalkowski, with $4,000 and a new car, went to pitch for Kingsport (Tenn.) in the Appalachian League. In one of his first games, he hit a fellow teenager, Bob Beavers, in the side of the head, causing severe bleeding in his left ear and knocking him unconscious. Beavers never played again and, McGowan later suggested the experience shook Dalkowski, who feared he might one day kill someone.That season, Dalkowski struck out 121, and walked 129, in 62 innings, and his career continued along that path as he moved through the minor leagues. During a season with future Hall of Famer manager Earl Weaver at Elmira, N.Y., in 1962, Dalkowski donned thick glasses and took a little off his fastball, and his control improved, 192 strikeouts and 114 walks in 161 innings.In spring training of 1963, Dalkowski’s control improved enough for Orioles manager Billy Hitchcock to envision him as a major league reliever. After one appearance against the Dodgers, opponents debated whether he threw harder than even Sandy Koufax.“My, he makes that ball look small,” Hall of Famer Leo Durocher told the Baltimore Sun that night, “all that guy’s got to do is get it over. If he gets that fastball over consistently, look out. Oh, my.”AdvertisementA Baltimore uniform was made for him, and he was dominating Yankees batters in his next appearance, striking out Elston Howard and Roger Maris, when he felt a pop in his elbow and his hand went numb. Dalkowski never fully recovered from the injury and was out of baseball two years a later. In his pro career, he pitched 956 innings, struck out 1,324, walked 1,236, hit 37 and threw 145 wild pitches.“My, he makes that ball look small ...”The stories that emerged were embellished, such as his throwing the ball through a wooden fence on a dare, hitting a hot dog vender in the grandstand with an errant pitch, terrified batters bailing out of the box. But those who played minor league baseball in the 1960s or 70s heard them, and no one who watched him wind up, with his relatively small frame and unleash his fastball ever forgot him.“He was unbelievable,” Weaver once said. “He threw a lot faster than (Nolan) Ryan. It’s hard to believe but he did.”Tom Seaver insisted many years later that Dalkowski threw harder than anyone he ever saw, “and I’m not the only one who thinks so, either,” Seaver said, during a 1989 TV broadcast. Another Hall of Famer, Gaylord Perry, wrote that Dalkowski was the “fastest, wildest pitcher who ever lived.”From his high school days, Dalkowski struggled to control his drinking, and often got into barroom brawls as he traveled through the minor leagues. When his career ended, Dalkowski became a drifter, a migrant farm worker in the San Joaquin Valley, he escaped from a detox center and lived on the streets. On Christmas Eve 1992, a family found him in a laundromat, took him in and traced his roots back to Connecticut.“I made it," But I didn’t really make it. ... I never drank the day of a game. But before or after, it was a different story. It seems like I always had to close the bar.”AdvertisementAfter his second wife passed away, Dalkowski’s sister, with whom he’d lost touch, brought him home to New Britain and settled into a facility, now known as Grandview Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center, in the center of town, where he lived the rest of his life.“When I brought him home, the doctors said he might live a year,” Cain said, “well, guess what, 26 years later …”Dalkowski left the home for appearances, frequently throwing the first pitch at a Rock Cats game at New Britain Stadium. He appeared at an Orioles game in Baltimore, and in 2009 at a Dodgers game in Los Angeles. He was inducted that year into the Baseball Reliquary Shrine of Eternals, which honors those who have made “a unique imprint upon the culture of the game.”To the end of his life, Cain would take baseballs and photos to her brother to sign for fans who had sent them to her.Dalkowski had numerous health problems and was confined to a wheelchair. Cain last saw her brother in March, before visitors were prohibited due to the coronavirus. Dalkowski tested positive for the virus earlier this month, Cain said, and appeared to be recovering after about 10 days, then took a turn for the worse and was sent to nearby New Britain hospital. He has been cremated and a small family ceremony is planned for next week.“I’m sure there is something happening up there [in heaven],” Cain said. “He was quite a character.”AdvertisementDom Amore can be reached at damore@courant.com Advertisement

AdvertisementBy Hartford CourantApr 24, 2020 at 6:43 pmSteve Dalkowski, who possessed a terrifying fastball he could not control and, though he never made the major leagues, became an enduring figure of baseball lore, died on Sunday in his hometown of New Britain.Dalkowski, a victim of COVID-19, was 80.Advertisement“He’s in a better place now,” said Patty Cain, his sister, who brought Dalkowski, suffering from alcohol-related dementia, back home to Connecticut 26 years ago. “He is resting. He had a rough couple of months.”One of the most written-about subjects in baseball history, Dalkowski...

Steve Dalkowski, flame-throwing figure of baseball lore, dies of coronavirus in New Britain

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