He stood on the mound, not large as pitchers go - 5 foot 11 and 170 pounds. He stared at the catcher through thick glasses - at least the batter hoped it was the catcher under his gaze. Then he’d wind and he’d let it rip. By all accounts, Steve “White Lightning” Dalkowski (see chart) holds the undisputed reputation as the fastest pitcher ever to play the game of baseball. Rumors go that Dalkowski once urged a batter to change his pants after one of his fastballs whistled by his head. Whistle it did. Many credible batters reported hearing a Dalkowski pitch, whether they saw it or not, made a most scary noise as the wildly spinning seams cut through the air. How fast was he? By estimates, White Lightning could deliver a fastball at velocities figured to be 110 mph. Compare that to Randy Johnson’s best recorded radar speeds of 101 to 102 mph. Mark Wohlers holds the modern record of 103 mph.
So why have you never heard of him? Actually you have. That is, if you’ve ever watched the hot baseball movie, Bull Durham. Dalkowski was the model for the wild, uncontainable, Nuke LaLoosh. Beyond that? He was called up by the Baltimore Orioles in 1959. On March 23rd pitching in an exhibition game in relief, Dalkowski struck out Roger Maris and Elston Howard. Not bad. Then, Hector Lopez managed a single. While facing Phil Linz, his elbow popped. Out for the balance of the season, he never returned to the show. That afternoon, the Sun crowded his Jupiter - an example of adrenalin surges and over extension combined with transiting Saturn opposing his Chiron. While Chiron commonly refers to lower body injuries, the image of any perpetual wound that cannot be healed came to light that day. Later, it would come to be known that the wound had other manifestations besides his elbow.
Before all that, why was Dalkowski so fast and furious? Simple. His Mars in Aquarius opposed Pluto in Cancer. This opposition carries another little twist in that usually oppositions occur in signs of compatible elements (Air, Earth, Fire, Water) and gender qualities (Feminine/Masculine). Not so here. The imagery is perfect. A power pitcher (Pluto) making batters afraid of home (Cancer) who demonstrates the best of the uncontainable, non controllable Mars in Aquarius. He threw hard. He threw all over the planet while intending only to throw a strike.
On two occasions, on dares (that’ll feed a Mars Pluto), he threw baseballs completely through fences. With Venus in Taurus in his chart, I’ll be money was wagered. He broke the masks of umpires several times. He threw a ball completely out of a stadium while intending a pitch. He beaned a fan in line at a concession stand (always keep your eye on the ball). One of his pitches ripped off part of a batter’s ear. The pitch was so fast and the cut was clean surgical reattachment could be successfully performed. He threw a one hitter once and lost the game 9 to 8. One year he struck out 262 batters - the league record. He matched the strike out number in walks that same season.
Dalkowski did other things hard, too. He drank. With Neptune to the Venus and Uranus conjunction he belted down liquor also at a nonhuman, ungodly rate. The astrology makes one wonder if he was ever in his body. An Air Sun sign to boot and that not-quite-grounded quality of Mars in Aquarius, it’s hard to know what he felt if anything at all. Rumors abound that he lacked basic hygiene skills and gave disorder a unique title. Fellow players stood well clear of his locker.
Where did he go? After finishing up what he could do in baseball he ended up picking fruit in central California. Over the years, drinking lead Dalkowski away from his wife and into the streets. Finally, in 1994 his sister and a former team mate found him and brought the former blazing pitcher now dimmed into alcohol-based dementia back to Connecticut and placed him in a health center. This as hard line Saturn trined his Sun from Pisces, often related to alcohol and drugs while lucky Jupiter in the out of the bottom of the barrel, Scorpio, crossed his North Node and came up to oppose his worth driven Venus and change-based Uranus. Proving he still had worth as human being and deserved care and compassion, the transits reclaimed “White Lightning” from drinks that might have similar nicknames.
This year as Saturn in Cancer challenged his Saturn in Aries and approached his redemption-based Pluto in Cancer, the fastest and wildest power pitcher on Earth returned to the attention of baseball fans. Later this year, Jupiter will again enter Scorpio. In his mightily musing ways, Jupiter’s inclined to ask a question not only of baseball and sports fans, but of humanity in general.
What do we do with heros when they no longer meet our expectations of accomplishment and the panache tarnishes? Jupiter’s not only speaking of athletes here. His questions are always bigger than they appear. Just today as I decided to write this piece about which I had been musing for a few weeks, nature fans awaiting the performance of one Old Faithful geyser were injured by a lightning strike. Metaphors and symbols abound.
While Dalkowski, within his slowly healing memory, clearly knows he had the best fastball on Earth, he may not know that the attention he receives now could be one of life’s most challenging curveballs ever seen. Perhaps we should all strike out to the get in the swing of the meaning of that.