Hoyt Wilhelm, Grandfather of R. A. Dickey's Knuckleball, Once No-Hit Yankees R. A. Dickey has been pitching with such profound dominance lately that when he digs his fingernails into the ball at Citi Field on Sunday night and stares in at Derek Jeter, it will be hard not to think back to what a predecessor of Dickey's did 54 seasons ago. The last pitcher to no-hit the Yankees by himself was Hoyt Wilhelm, a godfather of the knuckleball, who twisted Yankee hitters into knots on Sept. 20, 1958, while pitching for the Baltimore Orioles. More than half a century later, Dickey, one of Wilhelm's knuckleball descendants, is pitching well enough to make you wonder: could he do what Wilhelm did, and on national TV no less? Dickey's last two starts were one-hitters, making him the first pitcher since Dave Stieb of the Toronto Blue Jays in 1988 to accomplish that feat. Dickey also struck out 12 and 13 batters in those games and became the first pitcher since 1900 to throw back-to-back complete games with one hit or fewer and at least 10 strikeouts in each game. Dickey, of course, is pitching better now than Wilhelm was in "58. Wilhelm was a combined 3-10 that season for the Orioles and the Cleveland Indians, although his earned run average was a fine 2.34. Dickey's current E.R.A is even better, standing at 2.00. His record, 11-1, is the best in baseball, and his matchup with C. C. Sabathia on Sunday night is the highlight of this Yankees-Mets weekend. And if it seems unlikely that a team with Jeter, Robinson Cano, Curtis Granderson, Alex Rodriguez and Dickey's friend Mark Teixeira could get no-hit, consider that Wilhelm did it against Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Elston Howard, Bill Skowron and Bobby Richardson, all of whom would go on to beat Milwaukee in the World Series. "Whatever Hoyt Wilhelm was able to achieve and pass on, that's definitely in me and in my pitches, in a sense," Dickey said Thursday. It's part of the legacy, for sure. But it's not like I'm going into a game thinking about that. I'm trying to give my team a chance to win. The lineage of knuckleball pitchers is a tight one, and the line from Wilhelm to Dickey is easy to trace. Wilhelm tutored Charlie Hough, the Los Angeles Dodgers knuckleballer, and Hough tutored Dickey. In a way, Wilhelm's knuckleball is the grandfather of Dickey's. In 1971, Wilhelm was released by the Atlanta Braves and signed by his old Dodger teammate Tommy Lasorda to pitch for Class AAA Spokane. Lasorda wanted Wilhelm to help Hough perfect his knuckleball, and he did. Wilhelm gave Hough a new way to hold the ball, and he aligned him to the first-base side of the pitching rubber, which helped get Hough's knuckler over the plate. Later, when Dickey was with the Texas Rangers, Hough was asked to tutor him, and he gave Dickey personalized instruction on the idiosyncratic art of the knuckleball, including tidbits culled from Wilhelm. "I was so fortunate to be able to learn from a Hall of Fame pitcher in Triple-A," Hough said of Wilhelm in a telephone interview. The entire time I was with him, I made sure to play catch with him every day, because I felt I could learn from watching him closely. Anything I could pass on, some of it came from Hoyt, certainly. Hough said Wilhelm - who was born in 1922 in Huntersville, N.C.; fought in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II; and pitched in the majors until he was nearly 50 - was modest. He never bragged about his no-hitter, even though it came against a team that was in the World Series almost every season. Wilhelm came up with the Giants and was a relief pitcher until 1958, when the Orioles asked him to start for the first time, at age 35. His no-hitter came in only his ninth career start, on a rainy day at Memorial Stadium. "The baldish North Carolinian, whose delivery often baffles catchers as well as batters, held the Yankees hitless and runless as the Orioles gained their second straight triumph over the Bombers, 1-0, before a cheering crowd of 10,941," The New York Times reported at the time. It was the fifth no-hitter against the Yankees, and by coincidence, the opposing pitcher was Don Larsen, who two years earlier made history by throwing the only perfect game in World Series history. The only no-hitter against the Yankees since Wilhelm's was a combined effort by six Houston Astros pitchers on June 11, 2003. Wilhelm had a distinguished 21-year career and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1985. He died at 80 on Aug. 23, 2002. One of the quirks on his résumé is that he had a home run in his first at-bat in the majors - in April 1952 at the Polo Grounds - but never hit another. For those who are wondering, Dickey has none. Over all, Wilhelm appeared in 1,070 games, only 52 as a starter, and compiled 227 saves. "He was one of the best teammates I ever had," said Don Sutton, who pitched with Wilhelm in Los Angeles. He was just such a gentleman. Everyone loved being around him. Everyone, that is, except the 1958 Yankees, who stand as the last Yankee team to get no-hit by one man. It took a knuckleballer to do it. "I guess it builds into the story," Dickey said, playing along just a little bit. But my focus has to be on the hitters, not on history.