Veteran knuckleballer gets Atlantic League draft chance to revive career

The Atlantic League’s annual draft gives Vincent Towns a path that most veterans never get. At 53, the knuckleball pitcher is back in professional baseball after a 34-year absence, and the rare pitch that once pushed him to the margins now makes him one of the league’s most unusual names.

Towns’ route reaches back to 1991, when the San Francisco Giants drafted him as an 18-year-old prospect. He spent one more season in the Giants’ farm system in 1992, then disappeared from affiliated baseball for more than three decades before returning to the professional game. That arc has already made him a curiosity across the Atlantic League, where a local report says he has become the oldest player in league history and another describes him as getting his shot with the Hagerstown Boxcars.

The draft matters because the Atlantic League has built a reputation as a place where veterans and unconventional players can still find a runway. It is not just a mechanism for filling out a roster. For a pitcher like Towns, it is a formal chance to prove that a style built around movement, timing and deception can still work against experienced hitters, even when the rest of the game has tilted toward velocity and hard breaking balls.

That is why the knuckleball still draws attention from evaluators. It does not fit the standard fastball-slider template, and hitters rarely see it often enough to get comfortable. Its fluttering movement can turn a long-shot arm into a useful one, especially in a league that welcomes comeback candidates and players searching for one more opening. Towns’ return also gives Hagerstown a player whose story stretches from the Giants’ 1991 draft class to the modern Atlantic League draft stage.

In that sense, Towns is more than a novelty. He is a reminder that independent baseball still has room for a pitcher whose value comes from age, persistence and a pitch that refuses to behave.