One of the nicknames for a curveball is a "yakker." People in and out the game lauded Blyleven for having the games best curveball, but he was also temperamental. "It was the worst time I've ever had in baseball," he says. The Dodgers were ready to draft him in the first round in 1969, but in one of his last high school games, Blyleven got shelled. Normally that would be a random fact, but here it goes to the heart of things. Twins analyst Bert Blyleven on Houston Astros scandal: 'Everyone 1.18 ERA 184 Fastball Speed 165 Regular Speed 160 Slowball Speed 10 Left Curve 6 Right Curve 9 Drop Rating 54 Endurance Bio Born Rik Aalbert Blyleven on April 6, 1951 in Zeist, Holland. background-color:#ba3434; He retired following that season with a career 287250 record with 3,701 strikeouts and a 3.31 ERA. Friendship may be the tie that binds Blyleven and Scheinblum, but occasionally Bert can get snippy. (Also, Dean Chance? xwOBA is formulated using exit velocity, launch angle The Orioles legend has four 20-win seasons, a World Series title and a Cy Young Award to his name. Actually, given that the park factor was 104, Blylevens run support was nearly league average; 96% of league average to be precise. While down with an arm injury in 1982, Blyleven coached a Little League team, and gave the kids chewing tobacco so theyd look more like real pros. It was during this second stint with Minnesota that Blyleven became the tenth member of the 3,000-strikeout club in 1986 and won a second World Series title in 1987. He earned the moniker "Frying Dutchman" by frequently setting fire to his teammates' shoelaces, a practical joke known as a "hot foot". Actually, Blyleven was suffering from a groin pull and eventually took himself out of the game. Blyleven became the first Dutch-born player to earn induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Updated: Saturday, March 4, 2023 3:30 AM ET, Park Factors Calico Jack (Suwinski) is Back for the Attack. His breaking ball was literally untouchable. Bert Blyleven (born Rik Aalbert Blijleven, April 6, 1951) is a Dutch-American former professional baseball pitcher who played 22 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1970 to 1992, primarily with the Minnesota Twins. Though his age-28 season, Blyleven tossed 2,624 innings, more than anyone since Pete Alexander. Communication. He came back in 1992 but was mostly unproductive, going 8-12 with a 4.74 ERA. I wanted 300 wins, 5,000 innings, and 4,000 strikeouts, he admits, but after shoulder surgery in spring training in 1993, I would pitch four or five innings and my body would say no more. Nearly a decade later while an Indian, he flipped the bird to fans in Baltimore. Blyleven dominated batters for more than two decades with one of the best curveballs the game has ever seen and an underappreciated fastball. Then he filled out, picked up some speed on his fastball and wowed batters in rookie and A ball. He became interested in baseball as a young boy watching Sandy Koufax pitch for the Los Angeles Dodgers and listening to Vin Scully and Jerry Doggett announce the Dodgers' radio broadcasts. He began teaching the pitch to himself, learning to throw a drop in junior high. Blyleven went on to win the game 2-1, allowing five hits in seven innings and retiring the outsized Howard all three times he faced him. If you enjoyed it, consider subscribing to Baseball Prospectus. Robin Roberts hung on a long time but was a shell of himself for many years. At that time only 15 to 20 percent of the electorate supported him. I'm thrilled to see Blyleven in the HOF. Blyleven has a different grip on his yakker than most, but, then, he has been more successful than most. For some reason it has taken Blyleven 3,422 innings, 468 games, 195 wins, 15 years and four teams to be appreciated. "And here's a ball signed by the 1984 Cleveland Indians. Brian yeah, if you look at pre-1920 guys its really nuts. How high/low, in degrees, a ball was hit by a batter. Thats easy to figure: Take the difference between his actual win-loss record and what he should have had based on a pythaging of his actual run support and his actual RA/9IP. Half of them blew their arms out right after turning 30. Possessing both a screwball and a curveball to go with a deceptive palmball, Cuellar was nearly untouchable in the prime of his career. He still he ranks fifth all-time in that department. BBTF's Newsblog Discussion :: Blyleven thinks little of drugs, pitch count Blyleven is the winning pitcher in Game 3 of the NLCS and Game 5 (pitching in relief) of the World Series. "I told our third baseman, Steve Braun, to watch for a bunt," says Blyleven, "but Spanky laid a perfect one down. Rik Aalbert (Bert) Blyleven [1951] Bert Blyleven was and still is the only native Dutchman to have made a successful career, as measured by quality of play, in American professional baseball. [14] The Pirates traded him to the Cleveland Indians on December 9, 1980. A Batted Ball Event represents any batted ball that No two curveballs have the same rotation speed, velocity toward the hitter, arm delivery angle, or break. If you go through the above, he comes out to 298-239 for his career, ever so incredibly shy of 300. So did Steve Busby, Jeff Conine, Bill Singer, John Smiley, and Ron Fairly. The Blyleven abode, one of many handsome houses on his street, should bear a plaque commemorating one of the best baseball lines of this decade. 48 is from a one-hitter Blyleven threw against the Kansas City Royals on May 24, 1973. Play-by-play data prior to 2002 was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted Thats especially the case for the guys who finished near the top of the list (and where Blyleven would be if he didnt weirdly have those 17 missing wins). Camilo Pascual threw only two pitches, his fastball and his nasty overhand curveball, so as one can imagine those pitches were dominant. When the Angels came to nearby Anaheim in 1966, Bert didn't switch his allegiance, although he did become one of the stadium rats. Free local pickup from Brooklyn, New York, United States. Chris Bando, who loves pizza, was given an almost-empty pizza box. Blyleven debuted in major league baseball in 1970, right at the end of a great run of workhorse pitchers. This year he is 4-6, with a 2.97 ERA. Position: Starting Pitcher Bats: Right Throws: Right 6-3, 200lb (190cm, 90kg) . What makes his statistics even more impressive is that he missed five starts after he broke a bone in his right foot; while shagging flies in the Milwaukee outfield in May, he stepped on a ball hiding in the grass. There's the looping 12-6 curveball, which drops off the table just as the hitter thinks he has a read on it. Many (especially in THT-land) will call it luck. in "feet per second in a player's fastest one-second From 1971 (his second year in the majors but first full season in a big league rotation) through 1975, Blyleven struck out 200-plus batters each season (224, 228, 258, 249 and 233, respectively).. The curve ball was something to behold, but the argument that a guy belongs because of the aesthetics of a pitch's arc is simply ridiculous. Yeah, over his career. In Blyleven's first spring training with the Twins, manager Bill Rigney watched him throw batting practice and yelled to his pitching coach, Marv Grissom, "Get him out of there. Blyleven was happy to oblige. In his parting shot, Blyleven called the Twins' fans "bleep bleep" and said, "They're behind you when you do good, and they turn on you when things go wrong. In between, while a Pirate in 1980, Blyleven jumped the team in midseason, flying to his home in California and demanding a trade. There once was a rookie hitter who didnt need to be convinced the curve was something more than an optical illusion. Thereupon he drives the addressee 250 yards straight down the middle of the No. "Thanks everyone for coming, and good night. At which point Richie Scheinblum yells across the room to his wife, "We already have a Koufax ball!" Bert Blyleven Statcast, Visuals & Advanced Metrics | MLB.com On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. On July 16, 2011, the Minnesota Twins formally retired Blyleven's number.[26]. The only problem was that his name was published as "Blylevan," which is the way the Twins spelled it in those days. Catfish Hunter lasted only a few months more. Julio Franco, who had been arrested the previous winter for possession of a gun without a permit, received a toy pistol. Richie, you don't even exercise. Bert Blyleven Statcast, Visuals & Advanced Metrics | MLB.com | baseballsavant.com Bert Blyleven P | B/T: R/R | 6' 3" 207LBS | Age: 71 Draft: 1969 | Rd: 3, #55, Minnesota Twins | Santiago HS (Garden Grove, CA) Stats Standard Splits Game Logs Minors Batting Pitching Fielding Visuals Standard MLB Pitching Statistics In 2010, Blyleven had 74.2% of the votes, missing admission to the Hall of Fame by only 5 votes (0.8%).[22]. So how many wins did Blyleven lose solely due to his run support? "I have here a ball autographed by Sandy Koufax, a pretty fair pitcher. Mary Scheinblum bids $150; do I hear $175?" For a pitcher it is the average of his softest 50% of batted balls allowed. Blyleven had his problems from 1982 to early 1984, but he recovered, aging better than anyone not named Maddux on that list. [11][12] With the Pirates, he led the team in ERA, strikeouts, and complete games in 1978, and he helped them to a World Series victory in 1979. The answer is 11. Blyleven's first two teams, the Twins and Rangers, usually weren't very good, and even though the Pirates won the World Series in '79, Blyleven had some philosophical differences with manager Chuck Tanner. (Lou Sauritch/National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum) Shop Blyleven appeared as himself in the 1990 James Belushi film Taking Care of Business. How to separate run support from that murky third factor? From 1984-89, he went 95-71 with a 115 ERA+. He's celebrity chairman of the 65 Roses Club for Cystic Fibrosis there. In 1985 he again led the American League in shutouts with five. When I first discovered Retrosheet eons ago, the first thing I wanted to do was look at Blylevens run support. Many new voters had entered the mix, and old ones passed on. So how does he earn a spot on this list? Blyleven's curve breaks so quickly and so far that some batters swear they can hear it change direction. Blyleven married Patricia Ann Whitehead, a friend from high school, during his second season in the majors, and they have raised a happy family. I used to say about myself that I knew the day I would have to grow up and get a real job- it was the day, in Babe Ruth League in Seattle in the summer of 1957, when a guy named Ron Waara threw me a curveball that scared the living daylights out of me. From the moment he came to the major leagues, as a 19-year-old with the Minnesota Twins in 1970, he has been considered a great talent. He throws it a little differently than most pitchers, holding the ball so that every finger except his pinky is touching a seam. And let's not forget the classic knee-buckling curveball that has made countless hitters look foolish. However, Blyleven's early career with the Twins was not always pleasant as he was hounded by critics and fans. That may not mean much to you, but Ron Theobald is the only man in baseball history to go into the on-deck circle without his bat. [21] In 2009, he gained only two votes, for a total of 338, 62.7%. 1. Those who try to hit it show far more respect, calling it Lord Charles or Uncle Charlie. No matter what you call it, 150 years or so after Cummings or Goldsmith threw the first one, it is still the pitch that separates major-league hitters from the rest. He pitched in eight postseason games and went 5-1 with a 2.47 ERA. This likely hurt him in the early Cooperstown voting. 5.0. He will do anything to get it. 1971 TOPPS # 26 BERT BLYLEVEN NICE CARD | eBay "But if you had to have one pitcher to beat us, Blyleven would be the choice. If youre a fan of sabermetrics, and of internet-based populism, this weekends induction ceremony is thus a double victoryone for Blyleven and one for Lederer. Buyer pays for return shipping. He left in the eighth to a standing ovation from the Municipal Stadium faithful, 8,239 strong. A .264 career batter, Kennedy hit .120 in 25 at bats against Blyleven, collecting three hits while striking out five times. The house has lots of toys, some for the kids, some for Bert. Anything below 88mph is considered 0. Bert Blyleven - Baseball-Reference.com That way I know he won't lose it on me like he did that one time. "Here's something special. Autographed in English. Bert (Blyleven) was a terrific pitcher - a dominating pitcher." After the 1977 season, he was traded to the Pirates in a rare four-team trade. How is a batter supposed to hit a curveball when he constantly has to be ready for the 100 mile per hour heater? If the pitchers were different, the results were the same. But those were entire careers. Paired with his 98 mile-per-hour fastball, Gooden's sweeping curve made him one of the league's most feared pitchers during his playing days. He keeps a collection of baseball memorabilia in his study. play. What we're talking about here is a humongous stuffed panda, and he's auctioning off the bear at the banquet. It's one of the hardest things in sports to execute. Despite retiring at age 30, Sandy Koufax recorded 2,396 strikouts, won four World Series Championships and three Cy Young Awards. Maglie's numbers are not overly impressive due to his stint in the Mexican League that got him banned from Major League Baseball. His miniature car is a favorite. A little more than three years ago he was in an automobile accident that put him in a wheelchair for life and left him unable to speak clearly. [15] Blyleven was unhappy playing for the lackluster Indians and forced a trade back to the Twins,[16] where he passed the 3,000-strikeout mark and helped the Twins to a 1987 World Series victory. He generally did better in the second half of the year. Bert Blyleven Twins 2022 Topps Gilded Collection 1X Case 18X Box Break Normally a guy entering the BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot with 287 wins is pretty impressive. Nolan Ryan and Bert Blyleven had the tightest rotation and velocity combination," Schmidt was quoted as saying in a recent Associated Press story. A Tom Murphy autographed glove. Blyleven has put on more than his share in the past, for a variety of causes, and this is his second of the current off-season. ". Thats the question. 122), his five one-hitters, his eight two-hitters and his five three-hitters. Digging a little deeper into the numbers, it looks like it really was just luck, because Blyleven was at his best when it counted the most. He repaid some of his debt to Flores this off-season when he hosted a tournament to benefit the Hemophilia Foundation; Flores's grandson has that disease. He also became a baseball fan. He may have been the best pitcher in the history of baseball. No player who had debuted on the ballot since 1970 had a vote total that low and later won election to the Hall. In the early days it was fashionable to deny that a curveball actually curved, many scientists even claiming it was nothing but an optical illusion. Bert Blyleven. "If you gave baseball people their choice among Dan Petry, Jack Morris and Blyleven, Blyleven would probably be third," says Hal McRae, Kansas City's longtime designated hitter. You've got work to do. In the end, he fell virtually inches short of what would have been an unquestioned Hall of Fame career, just missing 300 wins (13 shy), 5,000 innings (30 shy), and 4,000 strikes (299 shy). The one who didn't give up on him was Jesse Flores Sr. of Minnesota, and the Twins made Blyleven their third pick that June. Heck, Manny Trillo made four. Blyleven got so upset with his role in Pittsburgh that he walked out on the Pirates for 10 days early in 1980. Angels pitcher Bert Blyleven throws a pitch during a game against the Baltimore Orioles on May 3, 1990 . "He's a great guy," says Judy Kirkpatrick. Bert Blyleven - The RBI Baseball Database But since no one close to 280 wins showed up after Blyleven, it helped him rise up over the years. Blyleven threw two different styles of curveballs, the most unique one being the drop that he held across the seams, a grip that is said to have been mastered only by him, Bob Feller and, Koufax. Take his 1974 season, when he went 17-17 despite a tremendous ERA+ of 142. The Indians are happy to have him. He really helped the 1976 Rangers make a run for the pennant. He needed elbow surgery in '82 after throwing only 20 innings, and in '83 he missed most of the last two months with a right shoulder injury. It can ruin a career. For two years we paid him a good salary, and he did nothing because he was hurt. See all categories. "[24] Blyleven was the first Dutch-born player inducted, and his Hall of Fame plaque depicts him with a Minnesota Twins cap. No takers? Blyleven recorded 3,701 career strikeouts, the fifth-most in MLB history. This was especially pronounced in his first seven full seasons, 1971-77, when he was in his prime.
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