Robbie Alomar & Bert Blyleven Elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame



I know this is relatively old news already, but I do have a few comments on these two players being elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame (HOF).

The first is that Alomar absolutely deserves to be in.

An Oriole, or a hawk?

I’m positive he was not elected his first time on the ballot (last year) because of the incident when he spit on umpire John Hirschbeck, in September of 1996. (The fact that Met fans despise him was probably not a factor.)

The second is that Blyleven does not deserve to be in.



I’m positive he was elected in year 14 of his eligibility because he pitched for 22 years, won 287 games, struck out a ton of (3701) guys, and was and has always been a very friendly and fun loving guy. For quite some time know, HOF voters have been lowering the earlier standards for election, from the truly great, to the very good, and Blyleven is absolutely a guy that would never have been close to being elected before (say) 1970.

Alomar ranks as one of the best second baseman of all time, almost assuredly in the top 10 at the position. He was a 12-time All Star, an excellent fielder, a huge base stealer early on, hit with good power, and batted an even .300 in his career. He also apologized to Hirschbeck publicly, and privately – the two became good friends after the incident.

Also (and I am not making this up), in 2001, while with Cleveland, he won the Indians GORDON COBBLEDICK GOLDEN TOMAHAWK AWARD! Interested readers can Google this or take my word that Cobbledick was a long time baseball writer and editor for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. In large part, Alomar received this award for all the charity work he did – work he continues to do today. As an aside, do your think Gordon was ever kidded about his last name? Kind of sounds like S&M porn to me, but perhaps that’s just the way my warped mind works?

Great curve!

Anyway, Blyleven makes no one’s all time team – serious fans of the game could assemble dozens of pitching staffs from baseball history, and never consider Bert Blyleven. He was very good any number of years in his long career, but never really great. He only made 2 All Star teams in his 22 years, which even I found remarkable. Ordinarily, I am not a huge believer in All Star appearances counting for much as a measure of how good a player is or was because fans vote for the starters, but they don’t vote for pitchers. The manager of the team selects those, and Bert only got recognized twice. I give Bert props though on one thing – he had a wicked-ass curve ball, one of the best 12 to 6 yakkers I have ever seen, and I saw Sandy Koufax pitch, and Doc Gooden’s 1985 season.

I have to add a couple of other things about Blyleven. The first is that even though I haven’t been able to tolerate ESPN’s Chris Berman for close to 20 years now, back when he (and ESPN) were starting out, his nickname for Rik Aalbert Blyleven was the classic Bert "Be Home" Blyleven.

It’s still funny to us older fans, especially if we recall the Richard Pryor comedy album with the "father" telling his son to "Be home by ‘leven a clock…hear me? You doooo know how to tell time, don’t you nigger?" 

The other unique thing about Bert was he was born in the Netherlands, and the only other big time athlete I can think of that was born in Holland is Rik Smits. Makes me wonder if only dudes from Holland named Rik can become pro sport stars?

If nothing else, it’s a given that Blyleven’s HOF induction speech will be a good one!