ATLANTA — Phil Niekro threw a pitch that baf­fled hit­ters and catchers.

Heck, he didn’t even know where it was going most of the time.

But the knuck­le­ball car­ried Niekro to more than 300 wins, earned him a spot in the Base­ball Hall of Fame and left him with a nick­name that stuck for the rest of his life.

Knuck­sie.

The long­time stal­wart of the Atlanta Braves rota­tion died after a long fight with can­cer, the team announced Sun­day, becom­ing the sev­enth mem­ber of the Hall of Fame to pass away in 2020. He was 81.

The Braves said Niekro died Sat­ur­day night in his sleep. He lived in the Atlanta sub­urb of Flow­ery Branch, where a main thor­ough­fare bears his name.

Niekro won 318 games over his 24-year career, which end­ed in 1987 at age 48 after he made one final start with the Braves. The right-han­der was a five-time All-Star who had three 20-win sea­sons with Atlanta.

Dale Mur­phy, who won two straight NL MVP awards as a team­mate of Niekro’s, was among those who mourned his death.

“Knuck­sie was one of a kind,” Mur­phy wrote on Twit­ter. “Friend, team­mate, father and hus­band. Our hearts go out to Nan­cy Niekro, the kids and grand­kids. So thank­ful for our mem­o­ries and time togeth­er. We’ll miss you, Knucksie.”

Niekro also pitched for the New York Yan­kees, Cleve­land Indi­ans and Toron­to Blue Jays late in his career.

Incred­i­bly, he had 121 wins after his 40th birthday.

“We are heart­bro­ken on the pass­ing of our trea­sured friend,” the Braves said in a state­ment. “Knuck­sie was woven into the Braves fab­ric, first in Mil­wau­kee and then in Atlanta. Phil baf­fled bat­ters on the field and lat­er was always the first to join in our com­mu­ni­ty activ­i­ties. It was dur­ing those com­mu­ni­ty and fan activ­i­ties where he would com­mu­ni­cate with fans as if they were long lost friends.”

A stat­ue of Niekro deliv­er­ing his trade­mark pitch is locat­ed out­side of Tru­ist Park, the Braves’ stadium.

Niekro joined Lou Brock, Whitey Ford, Bob Gib­son, Al Kaline, Joe Mor­gan and Tom Seaver as Hall of Famers who died in 2020 — the most ever to pass away in a cal­en­dar year, accord­ing to spokesman Jon Shestakofsky.

“These names, and these men, will be remem­bered for­ev­er in Coop­er­stown,” he said.

Niekro was remem­bered by the Hall as “mas­ter of the knuck­le­ball and a great men­tor, leader and friend.”

Niekro didn’t make it to the big leagues until 1964, when he pitched 10 games in relief for the then-Mil­wau­kee Braves. He made only one start over his first three years in the big leagues but final­ly blos­somed as a starter in 1967 — the Braves’ sec­ond year in Atlanta — when he went 11–9 and led the Nation­al League with a 1.87 ERA.

With a flut­ter­ing knuck­le­ball that required catch­ers to wear an over­sized mitt, Niekro went 23–13 as the Braves won the first NL West title in 1969. He was run­ner-up to Seaver for the Cy Young Award, the clos­est he ever came to cap­tur­ing pitching’s pre­mier prize though he fin­ished in the top six of the bal­lot­ing four oth­er times.

Niekro also had 20-win sea­sons in 1974 and 1979, despite pitch­ing for a team that fell on hard times after its appear­ance in the inau­gur­al NL Cham­pi­onship Series, where the Braves were swept in three games by New York’s Amazin’ Mets.

Niekro also led the league in loss­es for four straight sea­sons, los­ing 20 games in both 1977 and ’79.

He fin­ished with a career record of 318–274 and a 3.35 ERA. Niekro was induct­ed into the Base­ball Hall of Fame in 1997.

His younger broth­er, Joe, also had a long base­ball career with an arse­nal that includ­ed the knuck­le­ball. He won 221 games over 22 years in the big leagues, mak­ing the Niekros baseball’s win­ningest set of sib­lings, with a total of 539 vic­to­ries, just ahead of Gay­lord and Jim Perry.

Joe Niekro died in 2006 at age 61.

Phil Niekro pitched a no-hit­ter in 1973 but his most mem­o­rable game with the Braves came in 1982, when the team start­ed the sea­son with 13 con­sec­u­tive wins and improb­a­bly won the NL West title by a sin­gle game to send Niekro to the play­offs for only the sec­ond time in his career.

On the final week­end of the sea­son, the 43-year-old Niekro pitched a three-hit shutout and hit a two-run, eighth-inning homer that led Atlanta to a cru­cial 4–0 vic­to­ry over the San Diego Padres.

Niekro fin­ished 17–4 with a 3.61 ERA in 35 starts, but he didn’t get a deci­sion in his only start of the NL Cham­pi­onship Series against the St. Louis Car­di­nals as the Braves were again swept in three straight games. He nev­er made it to the World Series.

Niekro picked up his 300th win in 1985 while pitch­ing for the Yan­kees. He reached the mile­stone by shut­ting out the Blue Jays 8–0.

Philip Hen­ry Niekro was born in Blaine, Ohio, and learned the knuck­le­ball from his father, who played for a coal-min­ing team in east­ern Ohio.

“He was a very good pitch­er,” Niekro told ESPN in an inter­view after his play­ing days were over. “He hurt his arm one spring, didn’t warm up good enough, couldn’t throw a fast­ball any­more. Anoth­er coal min­er taught him how to throw the knuckleball.”

The elder Niekro passed it on to his son.

“He threw it to me one day.” Phil Niekro recalled. “I asked him what it was. He showed me how to hold it. Didn’t know what it was, didn’t know any­thing about it except that I liked it.

“I nev­er knew how to throw a fast­ball, nev­er learned how to throw a curve­ball, a slid­er, split-fin­ger, what­ev­er they’re throw­ing nowa­days. I was a one-pitch pitcher.”

After going 11–10 with a 3.97 ERA in 1983, Niekro had an acri­mo­nious split from the Braves, who want­ed to focus on their younger pitchers.

But Niekro was far from done. He won 16 games each of the next two sea­sons with the Yan­kees and even made the All-Star Game for the final time. He picked up 11 more wins with Cleve­land in 1986 before his knuck­ler final­ly ran out of steam.

Niekro start­ed 1987 with the Indi­ans, was trad­ed to Toron­to in August and was let go by the Blue Jays after get­ting roughed up in three starts. He decid­ed to retire but only after return­ing to Atlanta to make his final start in a Braves uniform.

Niekro last­ed just three-plus innings, giv­ing up six hits, six walks and five runs before he left the mound for the final time to a rau­cous ova­tion from the crowd at Atlanta-Ful­ton Coun­ty Stadium.

While the knuck­ler was his trade­mark, Niekro was an all-around ath­lete. He won five Gold Glove awards and was a decent hit­ter for a pitch­er, wrack­ing up sev­en homers and 109 RBIs.

Niekro remained active in the Braves orga­ni­za­tion after his retire­ment, tak­ing part in alum­ni activ­i­ties and often serv­ing as a spe­cial instruc­tor at spring train­ing. He also man­aged the Col­orado Sil­ver Bul­lets, a barn­storm­ing women’s base­ball team spon­sored by Coors.

Niekro is sur­vived by his wife, Nan­cy, sons Philip, John and Michael, and two grand­chil­dren, Chase and Emma.

Longevi­ty was the hall­mark of Niekro’s career, which was spent large­ly in obscu­ri­ty pitch­ing for Braves teams that rarely man­aged a win­ning season.

The knuck­le­ball put lit­tle stress on his right arm, so he made at least 30 starts every sea­son from 1968–86 — exclud­ing the strike-short­ened 1981 cam­paign — and fin­ished with 245 com­plete games in his career.

He was even able to make infre­quent relief appear­ances, earn­ing 29 saves.

In 1979, at age 40, Niekro made a career-high 44 starts, com­plet­ing 23 of them. He went 21–20 with a 3.39 ERA for a dis­mal Braves team that fin­ished 66–94.

He remains the last pitch­er to both win and lose 20 games in a season.

In this era where teams val­ue veloc­i­ty above all oth­er traits, the knuck­le­ball has essen­tial­ly become extinct.

“There’s nobody around who can teach how to throw a knuck­le­ball,” Niekro said in the ESPN inter­view. “There’s very few pitch­ing coach­es that I worked with that actu­al­ly came out on the mound and told me what I was doing wrong with the knuck­le­ball. Because they just didn’t know.

“I was on my own.”