Bert Blyleven turns 62 today. I’ve always had mixed feelings about Blyleven. He is a 2011 inductee into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He had a career record of 287 and 250 with a 3.31 career ERA and 3,701 career stikeouts. He also had the nastiest curveball I’ve ever seen. He had an odd career. He only made two All-Star teams. It’s hard to say this the guy won 287 games in his career but I always thought he should have been better. He only won 20 games once in his career. He had some of the best stuff in baseball but he never had even one season that popped your eyes out.

I guess I also always felt disappointed in Blyleven because of his time with my Pirates. I remember the night I heard the Pirates traded Al Oliver to the Rangers for Blyleven. The Pirates have never had a great pitcher. In the 35 years since they acquired Blyleven they still haven’t had a great pitcher. The 1970’s Pirates were filled to the brim with great hitters. They had average-to above average pitchers. When they got Blyleven my first thought was -now we have a great pitcher! In Bert’s 3 seasons with the Pirates he was 14-10, 12-5 and 8-13. That last season 1980 he was suspended for a time for his disagreements with manager Chuck Tanner over how he was being used. No one ever didn’t get along with Chuck Tanner. He then acquired the nickname “Bert The Jerk.” I can remember after he came back-he had a no-hitter going into the late innings. I am thinking it was against the Braves. I just remember sitting in centerfield, everyone was getting excited but I was rooting for someone to get a hit. I couldn’t stand “Bert The Jerk.” When Roland Office got a hit I must have been the only person at Three Rivers cheering. At the end of the inning when Office came out to his centerfield position- {I was in the first row} I stood up and yelled something to Office-and gave him a thumbs up. He nodded. Anyhow. At the end of the season the Pirates unloaded Bert The Jerk to Cleveland for nothing.

Bert Blyleven pitched 22 major league seasons. His greatest success came as a Minnesota Twin. As far as the Hall of Fame -he is a borderline guy who got in after a number of years of waiting. I wrote long articles last summer on the Hall of Fame. I think Bert would be like a level 2 Hall of Famer [with level 5 being the immortals- Koufax, Maddux, Johnson, Mathewson,…}

I will say one good thing about Bert. He was born in Holland. His family moved to Canada when he was 2 and then to SoCal when he was 5. He was got interested in baseball and was inspired by watching the great Sandy Koufax.