24 batters in a single game. After graduating from high school in 1957, Dalkowski signed with the Baltimore Orioles for a $4,000 signing bonus, and initially played for their class-D minor league affiliate in Kingsport, Tennessee. He spent his entire career in the minor leagues, playing in nine different leagues during his nine-year career. His only appearance at the Orioles' Memorial Stadium was during an exhibition game in 1959, when he struck out the opposing side. Dalkowski's claim to fame was the high velocity of his fastball. Accurate measurements at the time were difficult to make, but the consensus is that Dalkowski regularly threw well above . Dalkowski's raw speed was aided by his highly flexible left (pitching) arm, and by his unusual "buggy-whip" pitching motion, which ended in a cross-body arm swing. "I hit my left elbow on my right knee so often, they finally made me a pad to wear", recalled Dalkowski. Dalkowski often had extreme difficulty controlling his pitches. He often walked more batters than he struck out, and many times his pitches would go wild — sometimes so wild that they ended up in the stands. Batters found the combination of extreme velocity and lack of control intimidating. Oriole Paul Blair stated that "He threw the hardest I ever saw. He was the wildest I ever saw". During a typical season in 1960, while pitching in the California League, Dalkowski struck out 262 batters and walked 262 in 170 innings. Dalkowski for 1960 thus figures at both 13.81 K/9IP and 13.81 BB/9IP (see lifetime statistics below). In comparison, Randy Johnson currently holds the major league record for strikeouts per nine innings in a season with 13.41. In separate games, Dalkowski struck out 21 batters, and walked 21 batters. Because a pitcher is generally considered wild if he averages four walks per nine innings, a pitcher of average repertoire who consistently walked as many as nine men per nine innings would not normally be considered a prospect. But such was the allure of Dalkowski's explosive arm that the Orioles gave him chance after chance to harness his "stuff", knowing that if he ever managed to control it, he would be a great weapon. Pitching for the Kingsport (Tennessee) Orioles on August 31, 1957, in Bluefield, West Virginia, Dalkowski struck out 24 Bluefield hitters in a single minor league game, yet issued 18 walks, and threw six wild