Tom Seaver vs. Steve Blass

 

As Marilyn and I were laying in bed on Wednesday night listening to the Pirates game and hearing the Pirates announcers reminiscing about Tom Seaver, I said that this would have been a good night if Steve Blass were still in the booth.  A contemporary of Seaver's, I was sure that Blass would have had some good tales to tell about going up against him over the years.  "Do you think that they never pitched against each other?" Mrs. Grandstander asked.

Well, I'm sure that they did, but I could offer no specific memories of such games.  So, I turned to my friends at SABR for help, and sure enough, within twenty four hours, I heard from Sean Holtz of Baseball Almanac, and he provided me with links to the box scores for the six times that Tom Seaver and Steve Blass faced each other over the years.  I figured that this called for a Grandstander Spreadsheet:

8/13/67; NY 3 - P 0, @ NY	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K	Decision
Blass	7.2	8	3	3	4	4	L
Seaver	9.0	4	0	0	3	5	W
8/17/67; NY 6 - P 5, @ PGH	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K	Decision
Blass	3.2	7	3	3	2	2	ND
Seaver	2.0	6	4	4	1	2	ND
4-7-70; NY 5 - P 3; @ NY	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K	Decision
Blass	10	9	3	3	2	9	ND
Seaver	8.0	9	3	3	0	5	ND
6/29/70; NY 3 - P 2; @ NY	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K	Decision
Blass	8.0	10	3	3	2	5	L
Seaver	9.0	5	2	2	1	9	W
9/26/70; P 4 - NY 3; @ PGH	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K	Decision
Blass	4.1	8	3	2	1	3	ND
Seaver	6.2	12	3	3	2	5	ND
9/26/71; NY 3 - P 1; @ NY	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K	Decision
Blass	8.0	10	3	3	3	7	L
Seaver	9.0	1	1	1	1	10	W

The final tallies showed Seaver at 3-0, 2 CG, 43.1 IP, 2.70 ERA (slightly below than his career ERA of 2.86), and Blass at 0-3, 1 CG, 41.2 IP, 3.67 ERA (slightly above his career ERA of 3.63).

In 1967, the Pirates were probably a better team than the Mets.  In 1970 and 1971, the Pirates won the Eastern division both of those years, and were no doubt better, if only slightly, than the Mets. 

It's hard to imagine that the two would not have squared off face-to-face in 1968 or 1969.

Oh, and note that game from September 26, 1971.  Seaver pitched a complete game one-hitter that day against a team that, 21 days later, would win Game Seven of the World Series against Baltimore.  Care to guess who got the lone hit against Seaver that day?  This was a team that included Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, Al Oliver, Manny Sanguillen, Richie Hebner, and Bob Robertson.  If you guessed any of those obvious choices, you would be wrong!  If you tell me that you guessed Vic Davillio, you would be correct, but I also wouldn't believe you.

We all remember how Steve Blass' career came to an end, which is unfortunate, because for a period of years in the late '60s through 1972, he was a damn good pitcher, one of the best in the National League.  Tom Seaver, however, was in another world - worlds better than Steve Blass, and just about every other pitcher of his or anyone else's era.  

And I am guessing that Steve Blass would be the first person to tell you that.

Hurdle Takes the Fall, Bye-bye to Blass, and Who Ya Got in the Series?

The blood-letting began at PNC Park yesterday when the Pirates, in the smarmy personage of General Manager Neal Huntington, fired manager Clint Hurdle, right before the team's final game of the season.  The Pirates can manage to screw up just about anything, even a firing.

Clint Hurdle rides off

into the sunset

Let's face it, a case can certainly be made for Hurdle's dismissal.  He's been on the job for nine seasons, and his message had probably gotten stale with the players and was no doubt falling upon deaf ears.  His fate was probably sealed with that unbelievably horrid twenty-eight game stretch after the All-Star Break when the team went 4-24, and if THAT didn't do it, the tales of a clubhouse completely out of control during the second half of the season surely did.

All of that aside, though, the site of GMNH smugly saying how Clint needs to be "honored" for all he did for the Pirates, and short time after he fired him, is enough to make to make you want to retch.  And how about Bob "Mr. Dithers" Nutting going on and on about how great Clint was, and then telling us that GM Neal and his "excellent leadership team" will remain in place and will no doubt lead the Pirates to greater heights into the future?

As the PG's Paul Zeise said in his online column today, Hurdle's firing can be justified, but it can also be said that he did HIS job with the Pirates one helluva lot better than Neal Huntington and his scouting and development team did theirs.  And if you don't believe that, just take a look at the collection of sub-standard, non-major league quality pitchers that Clint had available to him in the bullpen whenever the underachieving starting staff faltered, which they did almost all of the time.

Clint gets the last laugh.  He is owed $6 million from the Pirates over the next two years, and I hope that he collects every dime of it from this sad sorry-assed organization that the Pirates have become.

********

Until the front office screwed it up with the timing of the Hurdle firing, there was a "feel good" story this weekend, and that was the final series of games being broadcast by retiring announcer Steve Blass, after sixty years serving the Pirates organization.  (Has anyone served the Pirates so well for so long?  I think not.) The fact that Blass' final season turned into a complete shit show was a shame, and the hijacking of his final game by yet another inept front office gaffe was icing on the cake.

As my own tribute to Blass, I will tell my own Steve Blass story.  I've told it before in this space, but, what the hell, here it goes for one more time.  Back in the '00s  when I was chairing the local SABR Chapter, I invited Steve to be a speaker at one of our meetings, and he accepted.   How cool was that to have a genuine, honest-to-God World Series hero come to speak to us free of charge.

Well, he showed up, spoke for an hour, and did a great job of being Steve Blass.  The following week, as was my custom, I sent a thank you note to him for his time and for the job he did at our event.  A few days later, my phone rang at the office - I was still working then - and it was Steve Blass.  He want to thank me for sending him a thank you note.

Who does that?

Here's to a long, happy, and healthy retirement for Steve Blass.

********

The Major League Post-Season begins tomorrow with the first of the Wild Card games, and culminates with the World Series, which might end right around Thanksgiving.  Ten teams are alive for a chance to obtain that World Series gonfalon.  Here is my Grandstander Confidence Ranking (GCR) for the teams still standing, with (1) being "most confident" and (10) being "least confident".

1. Astros
2. Yankees
3. Dodgers
4. Braves
5. Cardinals
6. Twins
7. Brewers
8. Rays
9. Athletics
10. Nationals

Feel free to factor the GCR into your calculations as you make your own World Series predictions, and, as always, watch, but don't bet.

Cleaning Out The Mental In-Box, Sports Division

A whirl around the wide, wide world of sports.....

Perhaps the most stunning news in sports this past week was the surprise announcement that Indy Colts QB Andrew Luck was retiring at the age of 29.  Yet another injury and the facing of yet another long and laborious rehab process caused Luck to reach this decision.  Equally stunning were the reactions of both the fans of the Colts and of the (too) numerous ex-jock talking heads that populate the (too) many sports networks that have too much time to fill.  How dare Luck do such a thing?  Everything from his dedication, his courage, and his very manhood was questioned by these neanderthals.  It was kind of distressing, actually.

From what I know and have read about Andrew Luck, he is an intelligent guy, and he would not have come to this decision lightly.  I hope he does well in whatever his future endeavors are, and that he can take every opportunity possible to tell the Steve Beuerleins of the world to go pound salt.

********

When the circus that comprised much of the Steelers off-season came to a merciful end this past winter with the free agent signing of a former RB by the New York Jets and the trade of one of their WR's to the Oakland Raiders I made comments in this space to the effect that I won't ever have to write about the two guys again, and I have pretty much kept to that.  Events over this training camp season and reports out of the Raiders camp have only reaffirmed that decision of mine, and it seems that everyone surrounding the Steelers would be well served to do the same.  In fairness, the Steelers themselves have pretty much adopted that stance.  That changed this past Sunday night when Ben Roethlisberger was interviewed by Michelle Tofoya on NBC and the subject of said wide out was mentioned.  I thought Ben took a high road and handled it well, but, of course, it brought up the idiotic tweets out of Oakland, and some idiotic comments by, among others, Shannon Sharpe.

Enough already.  That should be the last time anyone connected to the Steelers agrees to have anything to say about the guy who was last seen in Pittsburgh walking out and quitting on his team during the last game of the season.

********

How about those "Players Weekend" uniforms worn by all MLB teams last weekend?  Without doubt, the ugliest and most stupid idea ever.  Whomever in the high echelons of MLB came up with the idea for those monochromatic monstrosities should be fired immediately.

Earlier in the week, I made a post on Facebook and asked if anybody, anybody at all, actually liked them.  All I got were more comments saying how much everyone detested them.

********

Earlier in the year, Steve Blass got into a bit of a jam when he made an old-man-yelling-at-the-clouds comment about the excess amount of jewelry being worn by some opposing player.  The comment was seized upon by some as being racist and Blass was branded as such.  Now, you can say that Steve Blass is many things, a cranky old guy being one of them, but one thing that he is definitely NOT is racist.  His entire body of work in his sixty year association with the Pirates and MLB makes such a notion absurd.  Blass is also smart, or he certainly was in this case, because he chose to ignore the entire kerfuffle.  Never responded to any of the changes, and inside of a week, the entire story deservedly went away.

I mention this only to suggest a path for those associated with the Pittsburgh Steelers to follow whenever the subject of a certain Oakland Raider comes up for discussion.

********

One of the more distressing bits of news amidst the crashing and burning of the Pittsburgh Pirates in the second half of the 2019 season was the news that Jameson Taillon underwent Tommy John surgery for the second time in his career, and that he would be lost not only for the rest of 2019 but for the entire 2020 season as well.

Taillon was the second player selected overall in the amateur draft in 2010, and it hasn't been an easy road for him.  Tommy John surgery and surgery for a sports hernia cost him parts of two seasons in the minor leagues and delayed his debut in Pittsburgh.  He also was a cancer victim a few seasons back.  He seemed to turn a corner in 2018 and it looked like he was going to become the ace of the staff that the Pirates expected him to be when they used that high draft slot to select him.  This second TJ surgery on his pitching arm certainly throws his future and career in doubt.

Of course, shortly after his surgery, Taillon tweeted out the above photo of himself with the message that he knows what lies ahead, and that he will do the work necessary to get back to where he belongs.  Nobody really knows what our sports heroes are really like in real life, but Jameson Taillon has given every impression that he is as he seems:  hard working, strong, and, mainly, a good guy.

Here's wishing him nothing but the best as he heads down the long path of rehab.

Steve Blass Retires

The big news on the Pirates front while I was on vacation was the announcement that broadcaster Steve Blass will be hanging up his microphone at the conclusion of the 2019 season and retiring.  At the age of 76, this year will mark the sixtieth year of Blass' association with the Pirates.  

Blass has been a part of the Pirates broadcast team since the 1980's and if you listened to those broadcasts, you know all the stories, as Steve tended to repeat himself as the years went on.  One thing that you could never deny is that Steve Blass loved the Pirates, loved the game of baseball, and he knew the game of baseball.  When he would drop the act of playing "Steve Blass" he was and is still capable of bringing insight to the game that you are watching.  

One can say that Blass hung around five or so years too long in the booth, and those thoughts aren't wrong, but I give him credit for walking away from the booth.  In a town where being a play-by-play and/or color announcer is like being a Supreme Court Justice or the Queen of England, I would hope that Blass' move would be an example to a couple of other sports broadcast "institutions" in this town.

Several years ago when I was chairman of the Pittsburgh SABR Chapter, I was able to get Steve Blass to come and speak to the group.  I found him to be a sincere and amiable guy with whom to deal.  When I sent him a thank you note after that meeting, I was surprised to receive a phone call from him a few days later thanking me for sending him a thank you note.  Who does that?

Coming from a genuine World Series Hero, I found that to be a humble and genuine thing from the guy.

What Have I Read Lately?

Well, if you really want to know.....

Yep, after seeing the movie, I decided to reread the book for the first time since high school.  Fitzgerald certainly had an elegant way of writing.  His lavish descriptions of Gatsby's parties and a list of all the people who attended them were fun reading, and the story of the guy that everyone loves, until he gets down on his luck, is an age old one.  Not sure either movie version I've seen - Robert Redford and Leo DiCaprio - does do the novel justice.  An interesting read if you've never read it, and I am glad that I have read it again after experiencing life for going on sixty-two years.  Not sure if I'll ever read it a third time, though.

A new Lincoln Rhyme novel is always one to which to look forward, and this newest one is no exception.  Deaver has a way to come up with plot twists and cliffhangers (at least three in this one alone) unlike almost any other best selling author.  However, the almost super human powers of Rhyme and his partner/lover Amelia Sachs is becoming pretty formulaic in these stories.  Not enough to make me swear off of them and not read the next one, which is probably at least two more years away, though.  If you haven't read the Deaver/Rhyme novels, you should, but don't start with this one.  The very first one was "The Bone Collector".  Start with that one or some of the other earlier ones.  

I will say, though, that "Kill Room" deals with some issues very much in the news today.  Things like personal privacy, abuses of personal liberties under the mantle of "patriotism", and the use of drones in warfare.  Deaver does not come down on one side or the other, but how he lays it all out is thought provoking to say the least.

I finally got around to reading this Steve Blass autobiography that was published last year.  If you are Blass fan and a Pirate fan, you will like it.  If you don't like Steve Blass, then don't bother reading it.  Blass deals very candidly with the control issues  that ended his career, as well as with some issues in his personal life and marriage that could not have been easy to put out there for all the world to read about.  (You should know that one very salacious rumor that has been circulating for years about the Blass marriage is NOT true.)  The most interesting parts of such sports biographies, to me at least, are the parts that talk about the player in the years after the playing days are over, and this one was no exception.

One thing Blass says, and he says it a couple of times in the book, I found very good.  In discussing all of his control problems, he mentioned that whenever someone offered a suggestion on how to fix it, he would try it because "I don't want to be sitting on my porch when I'm 85 years old and think 'maybe THAT would have worked if I only tried it.' " And he offered that same bit of advice to other players over the years. It's not a bad way to look at life, if you ask me.