On July 4, 1939, Leonard pitched a complete game and the Senators defeated the New York Yankees in the first game of a doubleheader at Yankee Stadium. At a ceremony between that game and the nightcap, Lou Gehrig, who had recently been diagnosed with ALS, delivered his famous "luckiest man on the face of the earth" speech.
During Washington's 1945 season, Leonard was part of what was possibly the only four-man rotation in baseball history to have been all knuckleball pitchers, joining Mickey Haefner, Johnny Niggeling and Roger Wolff. That year, Leonard put up a sparkling 17–7 won–lost mark (for a winning percentage of .708, third in the American League) and a 2.13 ERA (fourth in the AL—and one of seven seasons in which Leonard would place among his league's Top 10 in earned run average). The Senators contended for the American League pennant, but fell short of the Detroit Tigers by 11⁄2 games.
Reportedly, after facing Leonard, Jackie Robinson once said: "I am glad of one thing, and that is I don't have to hit against Dutch Leonard every day. Man, what a knuckleball that fellow has. It comes up, makes a face at you, then runs away."[1] In the 2013 biographical movie about Robinson, 42, former MLB pitcher C. J. Nitkowski plays the role of Leonard pitching against Robinson.[2][3]
