I have a close personal friend who was good friends with Tim a long time ago. They were in the minor leagues together, back before Tim was a pitcher. Tim was actually an infielder, to start, as was my friend.
They were warmup partners before the games, and Tim used to throw my friend those crazy knuckleballs to try to catch as a prank. It apparently always caused a lot of commotion, so some coaches decided to let him try it some during batting practice, which eventually let to him being put into some games to see how it went. The rest is history.
So, he started playing with the knuckleball simply because he wanted to give himself every possible chance to make it to the Majors. Your friend with Wakefield was probably there when he first started playing with it.
Thank you for sharing that.