The Pirates' pitcher-turned-broadcaster will step into the radio booth to call his final game before retiring, at the age of 77, at the end of his 60th year with the same organization. In 2009, he sent a record of a completely different variety that demonstrated his ability to still be accurate at something: he posted two holes-in-one in a single round of golf. I have a varied background spanning social impact assessment, international and community development, environmental science and environmental law and policy which has provided me with a range of experience working on development projects both within Australia and internationally including countries such as Bangladesh, Colombia, Vietnam and China. But the moment a batter stood in against him he became a different pitcher, especially when throwing a fastballa pitcher apparently afraid of seriously injuring somebody. He agreed at once. Clemente loved it. Anyone who takes the trouble to write a man who is suffering deserves to be thanked, he told me. The enormous alterations of professional sport in the past three decades, and especially the prodigious inflation of franchises and salaries, have made it evident even to the most thoughtless fan that the play he has come to see is serious indeed, and that the heart of the game is not physical but financial. To be successful, you turn that kind of thought away. On the other hand, he often said that two or three successive well-pitched games probably would have been all he needed to dissipate the severe tension that affected his performances once things began to go badly for him. He joined the team in Chicago on April 16th, and entered a game against the Cubs the next afternoon, taking over in the fourth inning, with the Pirates down by 104. He wonders whether he will ever win again or whether he will now join the long, long listthe list that awaits him, almost surely, in the endof suddenly slow, suddenly sore-armed pitchers who have abruptly vanished from the big time, down the drain to oblivion. You can tell a man what to do, but you cant make him do it. He was struck on the right forearm by a ball hit by Joe Torre in 1970, and spent a month on the disabled list. We sure missed it., For the final three innings of the game, Blass and I moved upstairs to general manager Joe Browns box. I think he felt he didnt need any of thatthat at any moment hed be back where he was, the Blass of old, and that it all was up to him to make that happen.. He is friendly and informal, with an attractive smile. Then, in the fifth and deciding game, he returned and threw seven and one-third more innings of thoughtful and precise patterns, allowing only four hits, and departed with his team ahead by 32a pennant-winning outing, except for the fact that the Pirate bullpen gave up the ghost in the bottom of the ninth, when a homer, two singles, and a wild pitch entitled the Reds to meet the Oakland As in the 1972 World Series. It didnt even have to be major-league ball. Suite 650. After that last game, Baltimore manager Earl Weaver said, Clemente was great, all right, but if it hadnt been for Mr. Blass, we might be popping the corks right now.. Pretty soon youre trying so hard that you cant function., I ventured to repeat Nellie Kings guesses about the mystery to Steve Blass and asked him what he thought. What pleased him most that year was his consistency. See Photos. Blass, once his difficulties commenced, was helpless. Reconnect with Karen Lamb (Blass) by joining our alumni site today. I really thought he was on his way, he told me. Blass, it should be understood, was not the same kind of pitcher as a Carlton or a Gibson. Quick Facts She was born on 1953-01-31. Blass was enjoying himself, and it seemed to me that the familiarities and surprises of the game had restored something in him. Writer Kirk Robinson stated that, "In 1972, if you had to choose any pitcher in the . Ive had good luck against him with that sort of stuff.. 64 books | 59 friends Michele Neeson. Now, after ball one, Ill give him a medium-to-slow curveball and try to get it over the platejust throw it for a strike., Now I throw him a real slow curveballa regular rainbow. The booing from the fans, at first scattered and uncomfortable, grew louder. He knew that Virdon was not going to use him, but whenever the Pirates fell behind in a game, he felt jumpy about the possibility of being called upon. He pitched well in spring training in Bradenton, which was unusual, for he has always been a very slow starter. The pitcher goes into a slump. Steve Blass had become the tenured ace of the squad. I think most progress in baseball comes from enjoying it and then wanting to extend yourself a little, wanting it to become more. DAYTON, Ohio - Karen Lamb, 61, of Trotwood, Ohio, was sentenced in U.S. District Court to six months in prison followed by six months in home detention for stealing Social Security benefits and COVID-19 stimulus money in the name of her deceased brother. 1970 Topps Set Break Steve Blass #396 NM-MT or BETTER. I guess Herb Score was my real heroI actually pitched against him once in Indianapolis, in 63, when he was trying to make a comebackbut I knew the whole team by heart. Now Ill throw him a sinking fastball, and still try to work him out that way. Erik Sherman has been a freelance sportswriter for more than 30 years and is a graduate of Emerson College where he lettered in baseball for four seasons. First of all, Im going to try to keep him off base if I can, because they have so many tough hitters coming up. One day in January, he went over to the field house at the University of Pittsburgh and joined some other Pirates there for a workout. Last year, I went through something like Steves crisis. You know, old men dont dream much, but just the other night I had this dream that Steve Blass was all over his troubles and could pitch again. If I did Id go get Steve to pitch for me. Suddenly, a New York cop remembered a long-ago murder. Log in or sign up for Facebook to connect with friends, family and people you know. I was embarrassed and disgusted. Especially the young guyshe really understood them, and they put their confidence in him because of that. Tony Perez was the next batter. A pattern pitcher, whose slider works because of its location. Roland Hemond, the general manager of the White Sox, was at Bradenton that day, and he said, It was the most heartbreaking thing I have ever seen in baseball.. He and Karen Lamb were married in the fall of 1963, and they went to the Dominican Republic that winter, where Steve played for the Cibaeas Eagles and began working on a slider. 9 books | 63 friends Ann-See Yeoh. He had another pretty good outing against the Cardinals, for no decision, and then started against the Mets, in New York, on September 21st, but got only two men out, giving up four instant runs on a walk and four hits. I didnt know how to solve my problem, but I knew I had to solve it. He gave up two runs in the second, but he seemed to throw without much tension, and he even struck out Bill Melton, the Chicago third baseman, with a fastball. The fastball is a great healer. Karen Blass, 79. Blass put on his warmup jacket and trotted to the outfield to run his wind sprints. Lamb was 67 and had been in the hospital a week or . A person lives on, he said more than once, smiling. Updated: 3:31 PM EST Jan 15, 2019. The win was the culmination of a stirring uphill fight by the Pirates, who had fallen into difficulties by losing the first two games to the Orioles; Steve Blass had begun their comeback with a wonderfully pitched three-hit, 51 victory in the third game. On April 22nd, against the Cubs, he gave up a walk, two singles, a homer, and a double in the first inning, sailed through the second inning, and then walked a man and hit two batsmen in the third. Lets keep on with this!, He kept on with it, in all seasons and circumstances. Maybe I should have come right out and said he seemed to have lost his will to fight, but its hard to shock somebody, to keep bearing in on him. His hunched, airborne posture makes him look like a man who has just made a running jump over a sizable objecta kitchen table, say. Blass went back and corrected minute details, to no avail. Sudden and terrible batting and pitching slumps are mysterious while they last; the moment they end, they tend to be forgotten. All rights reserved. One of Murtaughs first acts was to announce that Steve Blass would be given a start. Robinson fanned, and Blass said, Same old twenty-eight., The Pirates won easily, 50, with Jerry Reuss going all the way for the shutout, and just before the end Steve said, I always had trouble sleeping after pitching a real good game. . If a player made a mistake, Steve knew how to say something about it that would let the guy know it was O.K. I thought Id died and gone to Heaven, Blass said to me. Blass once told me that there were at least seventeen theories about the reason for his failure. Murtaugh, a peaceable man, then charged the home-plate umpire and cursed him for the bad call, and was thrown out of the game. Id like to work on that a couple of times first, because its early and he swings so well. Steve Blass is 6-0 (183 cm) tall. Great picture. He lit a cigar and blew out a little smoke. Washington, DC 20515. Just a couple of weeks ago, he walked those same streets, had breakfast at Collin's Diner, still across from the surviving portion of the depot where he spoke on Steve Blass Day, Oct. 22, 1971. It was kind of scary.. In truth, nothing helped. Perez is not a good high, hard fastball hitter, Blass said. Well, I dont go along with that. He has never worn glasses when pitching, which meant that Pirate catchers had to flash him signals with hand gestures rather than with finger waggles; however, he saw well enough to win when he was winning, and his vision has not altered in recent years. ) He then fouled off a fastball, and Blass threw him another good fastball, high and inside, and Perez struck out, swinging, to end the inning. Well, I really did it. The Charlies did a lot of travelling by bus. Steves humor in the clubhouse was unmatched, relief pitcher Dave Giusti said. 2d 17h. Way to go. We both laughed. During his decline, he was plainly unable to throw the fastball effectively to battersespecially to Pirate batters in practice. Steve Blass pitched in parts of 10 seasons for the Pittsburgh Pirates. After that, Bill Virdon announced that Blass would probably not start another game; the Pirates were in a pennant race, and the time for patience had run out. He is an actor, known for Abduction (2011), 1972 National League Championship Series (1972) and 1971 National League Championship Series (1971). You get locked in, you see yourself doing things before they happen. He threw fifty-one pitches, but only seventeen of them were strikes. The distance between the minors and the majors, always measurable in light-years, is probably greater today than ever before, and for a man making the leap in the wrong direction the feeling must be sickening. He felt that the Pirates and Joe Brown had been extraordinarily patient and sympathetic in dealing with a baffling and apparently irremediable problem. Resides in Buffalo, NY. The training period made it clear that nothing had altered with him (he walked twenty-five men in fourteen innings in exhibition play), and when the club went North he was left in Bradenton for further work. Karen@Goldlamb1.com. Its like being plugged into a computer. He won a World Series title in 1971, earned an All-Star selection the following season and retired from the diamond a few . Blass was never thought of as one of the great pitchers of his time, but in the late sixties and early seventies he was probably the most consistent starter on the Pirate staff; it was, in fact, a staff without stars. Steve Blass, noticing my confusion, explained that, in order to avert a parade of walked batters in these games, any strike thrown by a pitcher was considered to have wiped out the balls he had already delivered to the same batter; a strike on the 30 count reconverted things to 01. Blass and I sat in his car at the pizza place, drinking beer and waiting for our order, and he talked about his baseball beginnings. He and Clemente had not been particularly close, but Blass was among the members of the team who flew at once to Puerto Rico for the funeral services, where Blass delivered a eulogy in behalf of the club. It is clear, however, that Blass does not believe he gained any profound insights into possible unconscious causes of his difficulties. Not just the stars but all the guys on the bench, like George Strickland and Wally Westlake and Hank Majeski and the backup third baseman, Rudy Regalado. See Photos. or. His two Series victories, by contrast, were momentous by any standardand, indeed, were among the very best pitching performances of his entire seven years in the majors. Tom Seaver went through such a slump last summer. Toward the end of his 30-minute speech . and in bookshops internationally. The winning (and undefeated) White Sox and the losing Orioles exchanged cheers, and Karen Blass, a winning and clearly undefeated mother, came over and introduced me to the winning catcher and the winning second baseman. Then suddenly, he lost his ability to pitch and it never returned. Swinging strike. I had talked that day to a number of Blasss old teammates, and all of them had mentioned his cheerfulness and his jokes, and what they had meant to the team over the years. Forty-seven years old): Right after that terrible game in Atlanta, Steve told me that it had felt as if the whole world was pressing down on him while he was out there. Of all the mysteries that surround the Steve Blass story, perhaps the most mysterious is the fact that his collapse is unique. Every accomplishment, every stage of the gameyou have no idea how much he loved it, how he enjoyed the game.. It was pretty funny to see people looking at me. As a result, he was of very little use to the Pirates even in batting practice. He shortens up and then chases the pitch up here., He was animated. He played his entire career in Major League Baseball as a right-handed pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1964 and from 1966 through 1974. Some pitching mechanics were discussed and worked on: Blass was sometimes dropping his elbow as he threw; often he seemed to be hurrying his motion, so that his arm was not in synchronization with his body; perhaps he had exaggerated his peculiar swoop toward first base and thus was losing his power. District Office in California. The 1972 season, when Blass won 19 games and made the National League All-Star team, was his best in terms of numbers. There is a further marvela touch of pure fortunein the background, where a spectator in dark glasses, wearing a dark suit, has risen from his seat in the grandstand and is lifting his arms in triumph. But Seavers problems were only relatively serious (his record for 1974 was 1111), and were at least partly explicable (he had a sore hip), and he has now returned to form. He and Karen Lamb were married in the fall of 1963, and they went to the Dominican Republic that winter, where Steve played for the Cibaeas Eagles and began working on a slider. His eight-year-old brother, Chris, played second, and their father, Steve Blass, in old green slacks and a green T-shirt, coached at third. 1. Age 35 / Jul 1986. Especially when there are young people growing up there. Select this result to view Karen Louise Blass's phone number, address, and more. Other occupants: Lamb Harriet T Mather. Blass, who had not pitched in six weeks, was extremely anxious about this test; he walked the streets of Chicago on the night before the game, and could not get to sleep until after five in the morning. More than four decades after the ex-wife of Righteous Brothers singer Bill Medley was raped and killed, officials announced they used DNA to identify a suspect in the slaying: a man who was killed . 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