R.A. Dickey's Cy Young was a win for all knuckleballers, like ... Bill Cosby

R.A. Dickey made history when he became the first knuckleballer to win pitching's highest honor this year, affording a bit of validation to all practitioners of the niche pitch. That includes everyone from Hoyt Wilhelm to Eri Yoshida to Bill Cosby.

Yep, that Bill Cosby. The actor, comedian, educator and American icon tweeted as much on Wednesday:

To Mr. @radickey43 - As a former knuckleballer, thank you for making our pitch respectable and acceptable.

— Bill Cosby (@BillCosby) November 15, 2012

While Cosby said in an interview last year that he "wasn't any good" at baseball in his youth, he did bust out the knuckler while throwing the first pitch at a Red Sox game in September, as you can see from the photo above. Maybe Dickey's success emboldened him -- and here's hoping the Cy Young inspires the next generation of knuckleballers, too.

-- Dan Wohl / MLB.com