Alomar & Blyleven Elected to Cooperstown

[Valin]

The American Spectator:

Aaron Goldstein
1.5.11

(Snip)
Today was also a big day for Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyleven who were elected by the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) to the Nationafl Baseball Hall of Fame. The pair will be inducted along with longtime baseball executive Pat Gillick (who was picked by the Veterans Committee) as well as sportswriter Bill Conlin of the Philadelphia Daily News and Florida Marlins radio broadcaster Dave Van Horne who will be bestowed with J.G Taylor Spink Award and the Ford C. Frick Award, respectively. (Of course, I remember Van Horne when he did the TV play-by-play for the Montreal Expos on the English language CBC). After both falling short a year ago,

Alomar spent 17 seasons in the big leagues with the San Diego Padres, Toronto Blue Jays, Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Indians, New York Mets, Chicago White Sox (twice) and the Arizona Diamondbacks. He amassed 2,724 hits, a .300 lifetime batting average, ten Gold Gloves for his defense at second base and back to back World Series rings with the Blue Jays in '92 and '93.


(Snip)

As for Blyleven, time was running out on his candidacy having been rejected by the BBWAA thirteen years in a row. Blyleven won 287 big league games but lost 250. But he generally pitched for mediocre teams and lost a lot of 1-0 games. Let's also say that his personality is very off color (language warning) and that has probably turned off some Hall voters over the years.

Yet Blyleven's possessed arguably the best curveball ever thrown by a pitcher in big league history. His 3,701 strikeouts are good enough for fifth on the all-time list. Had Blyleven pitched with teams like the Oakland A's, Cincinnati Reds or Baltimore Orioles early in his career he probably would have exceeded 300 wins. Instead he pitched for teams like Minnesota Twins, Texas Rangers, Cleveland Indians and California Angels. Nevertheless, he did collect two World Series rings from the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates and the 1987 Minnesota Twins.

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[NCTexan]

We were living it Fort Worth during Blyleven's time with the Texas Rangers (1977-78) and he was great fun to watch with his wild curve.

 

I didn't know this about his birth place and birth name however until I Googled him today.

 

Bert Blyleven (born Rik Aalbert Blijleven, April 6, 1951 in Zeist, Netherlands) is a former Major League Baseball pitcher who played from 1970 to 1992, and was best known for his outstanding curveball. He currently resides in Ft. Myers, Florida. Blyleven was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2011.