With Tim Wakefield making his All-Star game debut tonight after 17 years of paying dues and floating knucklers up to the plate, here’s a Q&A with the executive that brought him to Boston, Dan Duquette. The Duke has certainly suffered his share of slung arrows for being non-communicative with the Fourth Estate during his time running the Sox -- and for uttering the “Twilight” comments about Roger Clemens before The Rocket found the PED fountain of youth. But give the man credit for this: he had a knack for picking baseball players up off the scrap heap for next-to-nothing, and then turning them into usable pieces for the Olde Towne Team.

In the interview Duquette talks about Wakefield continuing to pitch until he's 50 years old just as Phil Niekro did, and that being something the two knucklers talked about way back during Wake's first season in Boston. If that's the case, then Wakefield will be carrying around some career numbers that will be borderline Hall of Fame material for perhaps the last great knuckler in MLB without a real heir apparent currently in the big leagues (with apologies to Charlie Haeger and R.A. Dickey). Wakefield will be close to 200 wins at the end of the 2009 season provided he's healthy, and another eight Wakefield-esque seasons would have him with some pretty imposing totals. Food for thought even if it's a little bit of a Red Sox reach. Here's the interview:

Wanted to get your reaction to Tim being named to the All-Star team and getting credit for the long career he’s had with the Red Sox? DD: He’s been a great player for the Red Sox, he’s been a leader for them and he’s been very dependable. The longevity is starting to show as he passed Clemens and Cy Young for starts and he’s inching up on them in the win column. He’s taken a leadership role, he’s been a player rep for the team and he’s always the first player on the team that would be up and out in the community and really sustain that involvement – whenever something is going in the community Tim Wakefield is there.

All those things are good. He has had some very good seasons for the team, but he’s never been recognized as an “All-Star” and it’s certainly good for him to be named as an All-Star.

It also looks good for the GM that had the wherewithal in the first place to pick up off the scrap heap? DD: He pitched against my team, the Expos, when he was with the Pirates and pitched them to an Eastern Division Championship back in, I think, it was 1992. So I had seen him prior to when we picked up with the Red Sox after he’d gone 5-15 with (Triple-A) Buffalo. We were looking for pitching and we signed him to a contract, and then we brought in a Hall of Fame knuckleballer in Phil Niekro to work with Tim.
So it was really clear to him, he said ‘Hey this knuckleball, this pitch, is going to be your out pitch for every batter.’ That’s what he had to remember. It didn’t matter if you walked three or had the bases loaded, he had a pitch that could get him out of the situation.

He was also clear on one other thing: he said ‘Tim, you can pitch until you’re 50 years old if you can master the knuckleball, and if you want to stay with Boston for the rest of your career then I bet you’ll be able to accomplish that too.’ Now, what he could do with the knuckleball he understood it and Tim took heed and did what he had to do to learn how to control it in all different kinds of conditions. He really refined his delivery and he’s kept himself in excellent condition, and he’s really perfected the control of his other pitches and how to make adjustments to command the pitch.

He’s had a nice career with the Red Sox and it’s been really nice to see him get the recognition this year. It’s good for him. They ran out of pitching at the All-Star Game a couple of years ago, right? Well, if you’ve got Wakefield he’s like the glue that holds the rest of the pitching staff together.

He can do all the jobs. He can stay healthy. He can pitch a lot of innings. He can pitch as a starter. He can pitch in middle relief. He can pitch in long relief and he can pitch in short relief.

Yeah, Joe Maddon had said that he had a role in mind for Wakefield, but he wasn’t ready to divulge it publicly on Monday. You would almost think that he’s got him in mind for that emergency role if they get to extra innings. DD: I’m sure they’d like to get him in there, but you remember when Terry Francona had to use Scott Kazmir and run him out there last year. Well, they don’t have to worry about running out a young guy like Kazmir and really stretching him if you’ve got a guy like Tim Wakefield. He can certainly do that job.

Organizationally, was that your idea to bring in Niekro to work with Wakefield? DD: Ed Haas was a trusted advisor to me and a special advisor to the GM and we worked in Montreal. He was a former manager with the Braves and he knew Phil Niekro, and he knew that Niekro could help Wakefield. Now, the knuckleballers within Major League Baseball are a very small fraternity. There are very few knuckleballers.

They’re basically like a little clique and a support group. There’s Phil Niekro, Tom Candiotti, Charlie Hough, Steve Sparks and Joe Niekro and Tim Wakefield. I’m not sure there are any other charter members to that club. It’s a small club and they understand the knuckleball, they understand the challenges of staying with the pitch and they understand the quirks about it within the business. I think they really help each other and talk to each other.

Did you ever imagine that Wakefield would have this kind of longevity? DD: I did and the reason I did was because I saw how effective he was when he first came up with the Pirates. He pitched them to a division title and I think he won 7 out of 8. Then he joined us and he won 14 out of his first 15 decisions. At that point I heard what Niekro said to him ‘Tim you can pitch until you’re 50’. I went after that and looked up Niekro’s stats and he pitched about ‘till then and he got into the Hall of Fame.

Niekro was really adamant about the fact that knuckleballers don’t really mature on the same timeline as your general group of major league pitchers because there’s less stress on the body from throwing the knuckleball as compared to being the classic power pitcher.

And if you’re talking about him pitching until he’s 50 years old, then you’re talking about him having Hall of Fame numbers on his resume at that point. DD: He’s been dependable. If you’re assembling a team and you are the general manager you’re really looking for dependable players. If you’re a manager then you’re looking for players you can depend upon. It’s those kinds of players that give you the solid foundation for your team. Tim is a good, solid veteran pitcher and he does his job. He’s a good role model. He helps in the community and he’s ready to pitch whenever the manager needs him to pitch irrespective of the role. He’s got a lot of good qualities and I’m glad for him that he’s being recognized on the All-Star team.