By JOE CHRISTENSEN, Star Tribune
http://www.startribune.com/
Last update: January 6, 2011 - 12:33 AM
Former Twins pitcher Bert Blyleven first appeared on baseball's Hall of Fame ballot in December 1997, the same month the movie "Titanic" debuted in theaters.Disappointment became an annual January rite for Blyleven, whose emotional outbursts peaked in 2001, when he called the process a joke and asked writers to remove his name from the ballot.
Blyleven's long wait finally ended Wednesday, when he was selected in his 14th -- and second to last -- year on the ballot.
"It's been 14 years of praying and waiting," Blyleven said. "I thank the baseball writers of America for -- I'm going to say -- finally getting it right."
Blyleven, 59, received word shortly after noon and immediately called his mother in California. He spent the rest of the afternoon conducting interviews near his home in Fort Myers, Fla.
"I've got goose bumps," Blyleven said during a conference call with national reporters.
Blyleven pitched for five teams in his 22-year major league career, but he's expected to become the fourth player with a Twins cap on his Hall of Fame plaque, joining Harmon Killebrew, Rod Carew and Kirby Puckett.
"The Hall of Fame decides what hat I wear [on the plaque]," Blyleven said. "It's their decision; hopefully it'll be the Minnesota Twins."
Twins President Dave St. Peter said the team is planning several ways to honor Blyleven in coming months, starting at TwinsFest in late January. St. Peter said the team will consider retiring Blyleven's No. 28 -- the number was last worn by reliever Jesse Crain, who signed with the rival White Sox last month.
Blyleven, whose curveball is considered one of the best of all time, went 287-250 with a 3.31 ERA and ranks fifth on the all-time strikeout list with 3,701 and ninth on the all-time shutout list with 60.
But the voters -- 10-year members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America-- were tough on him from the start. He received only 17.5 percent of the vote that first year and slipped to 14.1 percent in 1999. According to Sports Illustrated, since the current voting rules were put in place in 1967, no player except Duke Snider has overcome a lower starting vote total to gain Hall of Fame election.
"I think we felt [Blyleven's] pain; anyone who's close to him did," St. Peter said. "And frankly, I've always been one who believes the numbers speak for themselves, so when you really step back and look at his statistics, they're staggering."
The turning point for Blyleven came last year, when his vote total increased from 62.7 percent to 74.2 percent. Blyleven said he and his wife, Gayle, were particularly nervous this week awaiting the results.
"I didn't anticipate going in last year," Blyleven said. "I think being five votes short, I really would have been disappointed if I had not gone in this year."
Blyleven received 79.7 percent of the votes submitted by the baseball writers (75 percent is required for selection), joining second baseman Roberto Alomar (90.0 percent) as this year's Hall of Fame electees. Barry Larkin was third with 62.1 percent, and former Twins pitcher Jack Morris was fourth with 53.5 percent, in his 12th year on the ballot.
First impression
Former Twins executive Clark Griffith, son of late Twins owner Calvin Griffith, said he vividly remembers the midsummer day in 1969 when he walked onto a minor league field in Bradenton, Fla., and saw a youngster throwing along the third-base line."I was in the right-field corner walking in with two other guys, and I looked across the field and saw this guy throw a curveball -- just a horrendous curveball,'' Griffith said. "I looked at the two guys and said, 'Goll, I hope he's ours.' "
The guy was Blyleven, a Netherlands-born, California-raised 18-year-old who had just signed with the Twins and was assigned to their Gulf Coast rookie league team. A year later, he was pitching in the majors.
Blyleven lost numerous close, low-scoring games in his early years with the Twins -- he was 17-17 in 1974 with a 2.66 ERA, 19 complete games and three shutouts -- before being traded to Texas in 1976. Blyleven also played for Pittsburgh (winning a World Series with the Pirates in 1979), Cleveland and the California Angels.
"If we'd have scored some runs for him, he'd have won 25 games a year for us,'' Griffith said. "I absolutely loved the guy. I thought he was magnificent.''
The Twins reacquired Blyleven in a trade with Cleveland late in the 1985 season, and in 1987 the righthander was a key member of the Twins' first World Series championship team. Blyleven was traded to the Angels in 1989 and tried another return to the Twins in spring training 1993, but retired when told he would not make the Opening Day roster.
"I wanted 300 wins, I wanted 5,000 innings pitched and 4,000 strikeouts,'' Blyleven said. "I wanted to keep going, but my body wouldn't let me go anymore.''
Former Twins teammate Kent Hrbek praised Blyleven's competitiveness and his curveball, which he said was "as good as anybody's I ever saw.'' He also called Blyleven one of baseball's best practical jokers.
"He'd have been first ballot there,'' Hrbek said. "He was one of those people who made it fun to come to work. You need those guys whether you're pumping gas, playing baseball or you're a CEO.''
Blyleven flew to New York for another press conference on Thursday. He will have many appearances throughout the year, including the July 24 induction ceremony in Cooperstown, N.Y., but said he intends to continue broadcasting for the Twins, a role he has held since 1995.
"If they want me, I love what I do," he said. "I'm around the game of baseball. I love following Twins baseball, I love the fans up there. I've got to continue my 'Circle Me Bert' stuff. That telestrator's mine. I can't give it up."
Staff writer Dennis Brackin contributed to this report.
Numbers add up for Blyleven
By JOE CHRISTENSEN, Star Tribune
http://www.startribune.com/
Last update: January 6, 2011 - 12:08 AM
When Bert Blyleven started thanking the "people in my corner" Wednesday after finally being elected to baseball's Hall of Fame, the first one he mentioned by name was Rich Lederer, someone he's never actually met in person.
Lederer, 55, is an investment manager from Long Beach, Calif. In 2003, he began writing about Blyleven's lagging Hall of Fame vote totals on his blog, www.baseballanalysts.com.
"That was kind of the beginning of the campaign," Lederer said.
Lederer and others, such as Sports Illustrated's Joe Posnanski, have since written thousands and thousands of words on the Internet about Blyleven's career, gradually opening eyes among the Baseball Writers Association of America.
This explains how Blyleven's vote total spiked from 17.5 percent in his first year on the ballot to 79.7 percent this year, even though he hasn't thrown a competitive pitch since 1992. That's the biggest climb in voting percentage any player has made since Duke Snider was elected in 1980, after receiving just 17 percent of the vote 10 years earlier.
In Blyleven's case, Lederer helped changed the discussion.
"He's one guy I think who has really brought out so many different stats other than just wins and losses," said Blyleven, who went 287-250 in his 22-year career. "As a pitcher, you can't control wins, and you can't control losses, but what you can control is the innings you pitch, if you keep your team in the game."
Lederer began writing his first blog post on Blyleven on Christmas Day, 2003. The title was "Only the Lonely." In the previous Hall of Fame election, Blyleven had received 29.2 percent of the vote and seemed like a long shot to reach the required 75 percent.
"I thought it was an injustice," Lederer said.
Lederer's father, George, was a Hall of Fame voter after covering the Dodgers for the Long Beach Press-Telegram from 1958 to 1969. The son remembers looking at his dad's ballot, then feeling disappointed when vote totals were announced.
"I think the voters looked at career milestones -- 300 wins, 500 home runs, 3,000 hits -- and Cy Young Awards and MVP voting, and those were the players getting into the Hall," Lederer said. "My job was to make people aware of what they were missing."
Blyleven never won a Cy Young Award. He made only two All-Star teams. He had one 20-win season (1973). But as Lederer's research shows, Blyleven's record suffered because he received below-average run support pitching for the Twins, Rangers, Pirates, Indians and Angels.
Meanwhile, Blyleven did manage 3,701 strikeouts, which still ranks him fifth all-time behind Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens and Steve Carlton. He also managed 242 complete games and 60 shutouts. Blyleven certainly knew where those numbers ranked.
"I'm kind of a baseball geek," he said. "I love going on Baseball-Reference.com. I always looked at numbers, even as a young kid coming up. I admired Walter Johnson and Cy Young."
Blyleven, 59, read Lederer's research, and the two formed a friendship over e-mail and the phone. Lederer kept track of which voters voiced support for Blyleven and bantered with those who didn't, including a recent exchange with Sports Illustrated's Jon Heyman.
"I was the editor in chief of my school paper, so I like to write," Lederer said. "And I've got the finance and math background, so I love numbers. In 2003, my wife and I became empty nesters so I decided to start the blog."
With Blyleven officially headed to the Hall, Lederer can turn his attention to others such as Tim Raines, Barry Larkin and Jeff Bagwell. He said all should be in the Hall, though he probably won't campaign as much as he did for Blyleven.
Lederer said he will definitely be in Cooperstown on July 24, for Blyleven's induction. He will have to introduce himself.
"Bert said, 'You could be standing right next to me, and I wouldn't know it,' " Lederer said, laughing.
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Royals Won't Forget Blyleven's Hook -
http://www.startribune.com/sports/twins/112977729.html?elr=KArksi8cyaiUqCP:iUiacyKUnciaec8O7EyUs
Blyleven, Twins Celebrate Hall Call -
http://www.startribune.com/sports/twins/112966304.html?elr=KArksi8cyaiUqCP:iUiacyKUzyaP37D_ncyD_2yckUs
Blyleven 'really belongs' in Hall of Fame -
http://www.startribune.com/sports/twins/112440269.html?elr=KArksi8cyaiUqCP:iUiacyKUbPi87EK_g:D_GD7EaDh_0c:aD:aUs
Blyleven's Career Highlights -
http://www.startribune.com/sports/twins/112950169.html?elr=KArksi8cyaiUqCP:iUiacyKU7DYaGEP7vDEh7P:DiUs
Career Statistics -
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/blylebe01.shtml?elr=KArksi8cyaiUqCP:iUiacyKUbPi87EK_g:D_GD7EaDh_0c:aD:aUs
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