Brush with greatness: Phil and Joe Niekro

I haven't done one of these in a while, so I'll take care of two players in one post. Since they are brothers and I talked to them at the same time, it works perfectly.

Phil and Joe Niekro are the most successful brother pitching combination in major league history. Phil Niekro, a.k.a, "Knucksie," is in the Hall of Fame. He is the only Hall of Fame player I have interviewed (although there could be another one coming up. I'll feature him later).

Both of them pitched a majorly long time, from the middish '60s until the late 1980s. Phil played for four teams, and Joe pitched for seven. They were teammates both with the Braves in the mid-70s and Yankees in the late '80s. I do not associate either player with the team they are with on this 1988 Topps card. Phil will always be a Brave, and Joe will always be an Astro.

For those who like the quirkier aspects of baseball, Phil once won 20 games and lost 20 in the same season. That's when the Braves sucked. Before they became America's Team and I started seeing Braves caps everywhere. And Joe was caught dead to rights on the mound with a nail file and suspended. I remember seeing the video over and over of him flicking the nail file away from the ump and onto the ground.

But you know all that. This is about my interview with the brothers Niekro, which came after their playing careers were over. It was 1994, during the middle of the major league baseball strike, and the two were leading the Colorado Silver Bullets, the all female baseball team in their first year. The Silver Bullets traveled the country playing men's teams (mostly all-star college teams and over-30 all-star teams) and basically suffered a beat down.

The team was 4-30 when it arrived in our town for a game, and my job was getting ahold of Phil, who was the team's manager, and Joe, who who was the pitching coach. I remember being nervous trying to arrange the interview because, aside from this man, the Niekros are the only major league players from my childhood that I have interviewed. And those guys who played during the 1970s are the closest thing to living superheroes that I'll ever see.

Surprisingly, it wasn't that hard to find them, and Phil called me by phone from Virginia where they were about to play a game. Hearing someone in a familiar voice from TV say, "Hello, Greg, this is Phil Niekro," was an incredible kick that I'll never get over.

Phil always seemed like the friendly sort when I watched him on television, and he was like that in the interview. Open. Funny. He didn't care that he was talking to some podunk reporter when he was used to the bright lights. Of course, he had a team to sell, too, but still he seemed like a naturally nice guy.

Joe was friendly, too. He seemed a bit more business-like than Phil, but he had a lot of interesting things to say about the team.

They were willing to help run the team only if the women on the squad were there to play baseball, not to be placed on display. And they found 24 women who were serious about playing ball. There was no questioning that. Whether it was the right move to be competing against men is another question.

In my story, Phil said: "The short-range goal is to see a lady in the minor leagues. The long-range goal is to get a couple of women to play major league baseball." Obviously, that hasn't happened. Yet. (It'd be very cool if Eri Yoshida, the 16-year-old pitching professionally in Japan, was the first).

The Silver Bullets played for five years before disbanding after the 1998 season when they lost their sponsorship from Coors. Joe Niekro died in 2006 at age 61. Phil Niekro turned 70 on April Fool's Day. And Lance Niekro, Joe's son and a former first baseman for the Giants, is a pitcher in the Braves organization.

There's the first Silver Bullets team. Phil is in the center of the first row. Joe is second from left in the second row. Oh, and my hateful ex-boss played in the game against the Silver Bullets that I was previewing. I'm happy to say his flaws were on display. He gave up two runs in an inning and the Silver Bullets won their fifth game of the season, 3-2.

I enjoyed writing this story more than almost any other. It was about baseball, I talked to famous major leaguers, and it was a historic, interesting topic. There aren't enough of those types of stories.