It's hard to beat the beauty of this perfect knuckleball

This is the Morning Win, by Andy Nesbitt.

Baseball is a goofy game where a pitcher tries to throw a ball really fast past a hitter who has a wooden bat and is trying their best to hit that really fast ball that is traveling toward them.

And while fastballs are cool and curveballs are sweet and sliders are slick, there’s nothing, absolutely nothing like a good knuckleball.

A good knuckleball is the swish in an empty basketball gym.

A good knuckleball is that perfect free kick in soccer that bends over a wall of humans and tucks itself inside the upper corner of the goal.

A good knuckleball is there to make us all think for a second that maybe we, too, could throw a strike against a professional hitter (we couldn’t).

I bring up this love for a knuckleball because Baltimore Orioles pitcher Mickey Jannis threw one in a spring training game recently and the pitch was beautifully picked up on video by the team’s social team.

If you haven’t seen that video yet then click right here and watch it now. It will mesmerize you. You’ll be in awe. You’ll probably even giggle a bit over the utter absurdity of the pitch.

I know I did.

I’ve watched it like 20 times and want to watch it again right now.

Knuckleballs are great because they don’t travel all that fast and yet they can make MLB hitters look so darn silly. I’d take a 60 MPH knuckleball strike over a 101 MPH fastball strike any day of the week and three times on Tuesday.

Knuckleballs are great because the pitcher kinda has an idea of where the ball should go but even he’s not sure where it will end up after it leaves his hand.

Knuckleballs are great because catchers don’t have any idea of where the ball will go so they have to track it like it’s something precious falling out of a third floor window.

Back in the day I’d watch Tim Wakefield throw knuckleballs for the Red Sox and be amazed by how he’d strike out professional hitters with such a silly pitch. I’d also marvel at how his catchers at the time would wear bigger catchers’ gloves to give them a better chance to catch the knuckleball.

In today’s day and age everything is about speed. You want your internet to be blazing. You want the traffic on the highway to be moving. You want your food in the air fryer to be done already.

But when a major league pitcher puts his knuckles on a baseball and chucks it toward home plate all you want to do is sit there and marvel at the round ball as it dips and dives through the air… where it will land nobody knows.

And for those few seconds, nothing in the whole darn world can touch a knuckleball.

Sometimes not even the hitter.

Quick hits: NBA re-rank of most watchable teams… Players Championship predictions… Mahomes’ daughter has college deal… And more. 

– The second half of the NBA season starts tonight and my pal Charles Curtis is here with a re-rank all 30 NBA teams, from least to most watchable.

– The Players Championship starts tomorrow and here are 10 golfers that I think could win.

– Patrick Mahomes’ newborn daughter already has a letter of intent from Texas Tech.

– Dak Prescott’s father had a beautiful quote about his son’s big new deal with the Cowboys.