One.

The number is a rarity in the world of sports, but there is an exception that I find increasingly disturbing.

You see, this tiny number refers to the amount of pitchers in Major League Baseball who feature the pitch known as the knuckleball. The only active practitioner, Boston's Tim Wakefield, is in his 14th season with the club, and is closing in on breaking the record for most wins by a Red Sox pitcher in history (held by Cy Young and Roger Clemens).

The magic number to beat is 192, and this is most certainly within reach if the knuckleballer can stay in the game for another four to five seasons and keep up with his reputation for providing quality starts and giving his team an opportunity to win games.

With a career like Wakefield's and a pitch that prolongs careers (Phil Niekro played until he was 48), it would seem that clubs would be interested in the possibility of working on developing some good knuckleball pitchers.

This, however, is not the case. It now seems that my favorite pitch in all of baseball slowly seems to be going the way of the Tyrannosaurus Rex—extinct.