Lefty Darold Knowles holds a record that can’t be broken, having appeared in all seven games of the 1973 World Series with the Athletics, but his best years came as the premier reliever for the expansion Senators from 1967 to 1970.
Knowles was acquired from the Phillies on November 30, 1966, for fading outfielder Don Lock, 29, in one of Nats’ GM George Selkirk’s best trades. A minor leaguer acquired from the Yankees, Lock had two-and-a-half good seasons for Washington, hitting 27 and then 28 homers in 1963 and ’64, but tailed off badly after that.
The pre-Selkirk Senators gave up veteran Dale Long to get Lock, a strikeout-prone slugger who also played a solid center field. Even in 1966, Lock led the league (retrospectively at least) in range factor, which is one reason the Phillies wanted him.
Knowles, at 24, was 6-5 with a 3.05 and 13 saves for the Phils in ’66. Lock platooned in ’67 in Philly with 14 homers in 112 games. He was gone from the majors after 1969. Knowles made the 1969 All-Star team for the Senators.
Before that, he had established himself as the key man in the Nats’ bullpen. In his first season with the Senators, he saved 14 games with a 2.70 earned run average. His ERA would have been 2.25, were it not for a lone disastrous start in early May. Knowles was knocked out in the second and charged with six runs.
The ’67 start was the only one he would make in D.C. On August 9, 1967, however, Knowles pitched 10 shutout innings in relief, in a dramatic 20-inning comeback victory over the Twins. That outing turned out to be the longest of his career.
Knowles was the go-to stopper for Ted Williams in 1969, finishing 40 games with 13 saves and a 2.24 earned run average. Knowles was even better in 1970, despite a record (2-14) that proves how meaningless a pitcher’s win-loss totals can be. He saved a career-high 27 games with a 2.04 ERA for a team that lost 92 times. Knowles pitched in hard luck that season: fully 25 percent of the runs he yielded were unearned.
Despite missing most of the 1968 and early ’69 seasons while in the military, Knowles saved 60 games for the Senators from ’67 into ’71, with an ERA of 2.36 in 229 games and 373.2 innings. (Baseball-Reference.com sadly adds the ’75 season he spent with Texas to his Senators’ totals, so you won’t see his Washington stats added up there.)
Knowles went on to greater glory when he was traded in May 1971 to the A’s, long after Bob Short had fired Selkirk. Darold later pitched for the Cubs, Rangers, Expos and Cardinals. He was a coach for the Cardinals in 1983 and for the Phillies in 1989 and ’90. He served as a minor league pitching coach for several teams and organizations into 2015.
Knowles turned 82 on December 9, 2023.
Washington baseball history 