Fans at Cheney Stadium witnessed an unusual baseball event on April 3, as both starting pitchers in the game between Tacoma and El Paso threw knuckleballs. The match ended with a 3-1 victory for Tacoma.
This rare occurrence is notable because it has not been confirmed to have happened in professional baseball for more than 25 years. The last known instance of both starters throwing knuckleballs was on September 15, 2000, when Tim Wakefield and Steve Sparks faced each other.
El Paso’s Matt Waldron, on a rehab assignment, and Tacoma’s Gabe Mosser were former teammates from their time in the Padres’ system. Both took the opportunity to showcase their versions of the unpredictable pitch. In recent years, only ten players have thrown a knuckleball at the Major League level since pitch tracking began in 2008, and thirteen at Triple-A since 2023.
Mosser said he threw more knuckleballs than were officially recorded during Thursday’s outing due to how pitch-tracking systems sometimes misclassify pitches with unusual movement. “I like to say I can control it, but I can’t really,” laughed Mosser. “There’s little things that I can make it do. I can control it a little bit, but it kind of just has a mind of its own.” He added that while he learned some cues from Waldron about throwing the pitch, his version differs slightly: “His is like a true knuckleball… [mine] doesn’t really shake as much. It’s more of the low-spin tumble.”
Waldron used his signature pitch less often than usual but achieved four swings-and-misses out of ten swings against him and increased its velocity by over two miles per hour compared to last season.
Both pitchers performed well: Waldron struck out six batters over four scoreless innings; Mosser allowed one run across six frames. For Mosser—who began throwing the knuckleball in high school before reviving it this year—the game marked another step toward reaching Major League Baseball alongside his former teammate.
“It’s definitely been a journey,” Mosser said about his career path so far. “Obviously, the end goal is to make the big leagues and be successful in the big leagues… It’s stressful at times, but also you’re living a dream. So you just gotta keep going and live it day by day, moment by moment.”
