Seconding the motion

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Becoming the next Tim Wakefield requires more than mastering the knuckleball. It also means developing into a model citizen.

Maybe that's why the Red Sox have such high hopes for Charlie Zink, their knuckleballing phenom whose parents drilled him in the evils of a lawbreaker's life as wardens at California's legendary Folsom State Prison. Mess up, Zink's parents warned their young Wakefield-in-waiting, and wind up living under the same roof as Charles Manson.

That's right: cult killers like Manson, parent killers like the Menendez brothers, serial killers like Charles Ng. They were sometimes the stuff of dinner conversation for Theodore and Joyce Zink, who held sway over such villains by day and their son, Charlie, by night.

Talk about "Folsom Prison Blues."

"They would show me everything that happened in prison," said Zink, whose knuckler has helped him rise so fast in the Sox system that he is expected to make a cameo or two in the Grapefruit League for the major league team. "They would bring home pictures of Charles Manson and all those famous guys. And they would take me inside the prison once in a while to show me what it was like, kind of a `scared straight' type of thing."

While it remains to be seen whether Zink approaches Wakefield's professional achievements -- or the charitable work for which he has been honored five straight years with the team's Roberto Clemente Award -- it's a good bet the kid won't make any headlines in the crime blotter. His father, who was a chief deputy warden at Folsom, often brought home confiscated items such as the makeshift knives inmates fashioned out of toothbrushes and scraps of license plates. Zink's mother was an associate warden.

"It was pretty scary stuff," Zink said. "I never wanted to mess up after that. I kept a pretty straight line growing up."

His father, who died in 2002, made sure of it, as Luis Tiant can attest. El Tiante was coaching the Savannah College of Art and Design's baseball team when he recruited the younger Zink from a junior college in California.

"His father was a tough guy, a big Irish guy," Tiant said. "He used to tell me, `If he disrespects you, kick his [butt]. Don't worry. I'm not going to shoot you or anything. Just kick his [butt].' "

No need. Zink was such a model player that he even patterned himself after Tiant, spinning and turning his back to batters during his delivery. And he fared relatively well as a conventional starter in Division 3, logging 263 strikeouts and 110 walks in 210 1/3 innings.

Still, he went unclaimed in the 2001 draft and generated no interest in tryouts with the Mariners and Devil Rays, among others, before he wound up making less than $600 a month playing for the independent Yuma Bullfrogs. His baseball future began to look so bleak that Zink planned to enter the PGA's qualifying school and compete for a tour card.

Then Tiant helped him land a job with the Sox. Zink signed as a nondrafted free agent the day before the 2002 season. His bonus: Zero.

"I didn't really care," he said. "I just wanted a chance to get my foot in the door. I was lucky Luis had enough influence so someone would take a shot on me."

The Sox sent him to Single A Augusta, where he posted a 1.41 ERA in 30 relief appearances, mostly as a conventional pitcher. Along the way, he lost his father to cancer. It was the day after Father's Day, and Zink rushed home to California as his father lay dying.

"I got home to talk to him, and later that night he passed away," Zink said. "It seemed like he was just waiting for me to come home and talk so we could say our goodbyes."

Back at Augusta, it became clear to the organization's talent evaluators that Zink lacked major league stuff. Then-pitching coordinator Goose Gregson saw Zink toss a knuckleball in practice. The ball struck the unmasked catcher in the face and split open his eye. Thus, a prospect was born.

"From then on, they started making me mess around with the pitch a little more," Zink said.

The Sox brought him together with Wakefield last spring for a tutorial, and they have flooded him with DVDs of Wakefield's performances, including his two starts last October against the Yankees in the American League Championship Series (the Sox did not ship Zink a DVD of Game 7).

"I think it's great the organization is giving another [knuckleballer] a chance to keep things going," said Wakefield, who is expected to work with Zink again this spring.

In his first full season as a knuckleballer, Zink went a combined 10-11 with a 3.80 ERA for Single A Sarasota and Double A Portland at age 23. In Wakefield's first full season as a knuckleballer, also at 23, he went 10-14 with a 4.63 ERA at Single A. Zink also led the Sox farm system last year in innings (175) before he threw an additional 25 1/3 in the Arizona Fall League.

"He's a tough kid," Tiant said. "He's works hard, and he wants to make it. He's a fighter."

Zink ended last season by falling one out shy of pitching a no-hitter for Portland, not long after a start in which he pitched five perfect innings. That kind of success is likely to make it seem worthwhile to him earning $1,700 a month for the Sea Dogs this season as he continues to emulate Wakefield.

"It's not what I make now, it's what I want to make," Zink said. "Hopefully, I can stick around long enough to get a big contract like he did."

While staying out of trouble.