A Cy for NY

R.A. Dickey is the first knuckleballer ever win a Cy Young Award. The unconventional Mets ace pulled it off with a 20-victory season highlighted by consecutive one-hitters. He also led to National League with 230 strikeouts. Take a good look at the grip -- what really ought to be called a "fingertip ball" defies gravity and often logic. Dickey is not your typical athlete. Last winter, he published the insightful autobiography Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity and the Perfect Knuckleball. He also climbed Mount Kilimanjaro to benefit a charity for at-risk women in Mumbai. Combining a demeanor more akin to a college professor than a pro athlete with intense determination -- not sticking in the majors until he was 35 -- and woven around the game's trickiest pitch, Dickey wrote one of baseball's nicest stories in 2012.

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