His statistics for the 1973 season were three wins and nine defeats, and an earned-run average of 9.81. The Cubs won, 20, but Steve gave up only two hits and one earned run in the five innings he worked. Murtaugh, a peaceable man, then charged the home-plate umpire and cursed him for the bad call, and was thrown out of the game. Blass then returned to Bradenton and worked for several days with the Pirates minor-league pitching coach, Larry Sherry, on some pitching mechanics. Ill throw it in the dirt to show it to himget him geared to that kind of speed. 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. share to facebook . No one, including Blass himself, can cure or explain it. He didnt quite make the big club when training ended in the spring, and was sent down to the Pirates Triple A club in Columbus, but the call came three weeks later. Blass coached quietly, moving the fielders in or over a few steps, asking the shortstop if he knew how many outs there were, reminding someone to take his hands out of his pockets. I tried to imagine what it felt like for him not to be down in the dugout. Tony Bartirome, the Pirate trainer, who is a close friend of Steves, thought he was pitching as well as he ever had. He tried pitching with his left foot tucked up behind his right knee until the last possible second of his delivery. A ballplayer learns very early that he cant bring the game home with him every night, he said once. But decades from now he'll still be remembered in Pittsburgh for the prior. He was always up, always agitating. Professional sports have a powerful hold on us because they display and glorify remarkable physical capacities, and because the artificial demands of games played for very high rewards produce vivid responses. He and Karen had agreed that the family would go back to Bradenton for spring training, and that he would give it one more try. On April 24, 2014, the Jamestown Jammers hosted a special event in Warren featuring Pittsburgh Pirates player and announcer Steve Blass. 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. In 1973, Steve Blass was an extremely successful and useful big-league pitcher. It was the worst experience of my baseball life, Blass told me. He won a complete game against the Padres, but in his next two appearances, against the Dodgers and the Expos, he survived for barely half the distance; in the Expos game, he threw three scoreless innings, and then suddenly gave up two singles, a double, and two walks. . Blass spent four days with him, and then rejoined the Pirates, this time as a batting-practice pitcher. It was a good trip, because it gave him time to sort things out, and somewhere along the way he decided to give it up. Blasss story is different. I dont think Ill ever forget it. The team was still in Atlanta, and Virdon called Blass into the game in the fifth inning, with the Pirates trailing by 83. Thats a good feeling. A person lives on, he said more than once, smiling. Hey, you can really see how it works from here, cant you? he said. The big hit of the game was a triple to left center by the White Sox catcher, David Blass, who is ten years old. I was totally unnerved. When Ted Simmons stood in for the visitors, Blass said, Hes always hit me pretty good. One of my personal favorites involves Chelsea captain John Terry and his former teammate Wayne Bridge. The Blass family room was trophied and comfortable. In any case, Blass wanted to go. I asked if maintaining this superhuman calm might not have damaged Steve in some way, or even added to his problems. Im not bitter about this. His wife, Karen, also from the . Youre afraid to lose a friend, and you want to go easy on him because he is your friend. Who Is Steve Blass's Wife? Uncle and Aunt, Larry and Karen (Erickson) Stoller, Uncle Chris Blass, Aunt Coleen Blass, Cousins Lyndsi . Exploring a pitching career that began with a complete-game victory over Hall of Famer Don Drysdale in 1964 and ended when he could no longer control his pitches, this book details the life of Pittsburgh Pirates great, Steve Blass. I took some of these hard questions to Blasss colleagues. At contract-renewal time, earned-run averages below 3.30 are invariably mentioned by pitchers; an E.R.A. Join Facebook to connect with Karen Lamb and others you may know. 3.85. It is clear, however, that Blass does not believe he gained any profound insights into possible unconscious causes of his difficulties. Los Angeles, CA 90010. I guess I dont have a tendency to go into things in much depth. . In the end, it was talking to people that did it. Innumerable other remedies were proposed by friends and strangers. Virdon and Blass agreed that a spell in the bullpen seemed called for; at least he could work on his problems there every day. I remember the vivid contrast in styles between the two stars in the noisy, floodlit, champagne-drenched Pirate clubhouse that afternoon. He didn't. In '72 he had some of the best numbers of his career. SEND FLOWERS Add a Memory Share Obituary . Blass threw another slider, and Bench hit a line single to left, moving Morgan to second. Advertisement. Id always play a full gamea made-up game, with two big-league teamsand Id write down the line score as I went along, and keep the results. He could do Roberto Clementenot just the way he moved but the way he talked. A lot of the Sox struck out, too, and a lot of players on both teams walked more than I could count, in fact. He shortens up and then chases the pitch up here., He was animated. Background details that you might want to know about Karen include: ethnicity is Caucasian, whose political affiliation is currently a registered Republican; and religious views are listed as Christian. . He suddenly laughed. He won nineteen games for the Pirates and lost only eight, posting an earned-run average of 2.48sixth-best in the National Leagueand being selected for the N.L. Lamb was also ordered to repay the money she stole. Karen Lamb Miller passed away peacefully, surrounded by her family on June 20, 2010, at Saint Luke's Hospital, after a sudden illness. The Charlies did a lot of travelling by bus. Pitching, it sometimes appears, is too hard for anyone. Karen Lamb: Children(s) Chris Blass, David Blass: It must have been hell for him, Dave Giusti says. Sudden and terrible batting and pitching slumps are mysterious while they last; the moment they end, they tend to be forgotten. 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. He wont want to take the bat out of Benchs hands. He released another cloud of cigar smoke, thinking hard. Watching him work, you sometimes wondered how he was getting all those batters out. Sport is no longer a release from the harsh everyday American business world but its continuation and apotheosis. He had had enough. After the second game, he showered and got into his Volkswagen and started North to join his family, who had returned to Pittsburgh. Steve Blass pitched in parts of 10 seasons for the Pittsburgh Pirates. 39 books | 264 friends Rionach Aiken. One of the teams always had to be the Indians. Especially when there are young people growing up there. Ill start him off with a slider away. Of all the mysteries that surround the Steve Blass story, perhaps the most mysterious is the fact that his collapse is unique. In the summer of 54, when they won that record one hundred and eleven games, I managed to find every single box score in the newspapers and clip it, which took some doing up where we lived. Clemente loved it. Im real proud of the fact that this thing hasnt bothered us at home. Under the guidance of pitching coach Don Osborn, he attempted some unusual experiments. Suddenly, a New York cop remembered a long-ago murder. I think Karen and I are closer than ever because of this., Karen once said to me, Day to day, he hasnt changed. Karen Blais. Im a surface reactor. I was encouraged. Everybody has been great to me, all through this thing, Blass said. He says now that he was very interested in Dr. Harrisons theories but that they just didnt seem to help him much. Slow-motion films of his delivery were studied and compared with films taken during some of his best games of the past; much of his motion, it was noticed, seemed extraneous, but he had thrown exactly the same way at his peak. I dont know the answer, Bill Virdon told me in the Yankee clubhouse. Blass said, We got in the car, and I floored it all the way across Ohio. This is circular, and perhaps more a description of symptoms than of the disability itself. If he came back now, however, it would have to be at the minor-league level, and even if he made it back to the majors, he could expect only three or four more years before his effectiveness would decline because of age and he would have to start thinking about retirement. I dont want to put myself over other people. He takes pride in the fact that his outward, day-to-day demeanor altered very little through his long ordeal. He had mechanical difficulties, with some underlying mental cause. Blass laid off slow pitches here, so Sanguillen would have a chance to throw out Morgan if he was stealing. He started again against the Braves on June 11th, in Atlanta; after three and one-third innings he was gone, having given up seven singles, a home run, two walks, and a total of five runs. They have two children. We are no longer at a game. He was struck on the right forearm by a ball hit by Joe Torre in 1970, and spent a month on the disabled list. The Cubs batted around against him in the first inning he pitched, and in the sixth he gave up back-to-back home runs. Blass did not argue about the decision; in fact, as a veteran with more than eight years service in the majors, he had to agree to the demotion before the parent club could send him down. He could do rat soundsthe noise a rat makes running. But Steve Blass never had a good day in baseball after this thing hit him.. " Down The Drain " is an unusual sports story. Age 35 / Jul 1986. Toward the end of his 30-minute speech . Here are pictures from November 2022 show. Other occupants: Lamb Harriet T Mather. 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. Log In. I am with Carly and Naami in one picture. PITTSBURGH -- Steve Blass sat in the press conference room at PNC Park on Tuesday morning with a piece of paper in front of him. He is a member of famous Actor with the age 80 years old group. I dont remember what happened that first day, but I went out there very tense and anxious every time. Douglas D Blass and Randall Cheney are also associated with this address. He poured himself another cup of coffee and lit up a Garcia y Vega. Strikeouts are of no particular use in defining pitching effectiveness, since there are other, less vivid ways of retiring batters, but bases on balls matter. We had moved along by now to the Blasses house, a medium-sized brick structure on a hillside in Upper St. Clair, which is a suburb about twelve miles southeast of Pittsburgh. (He is six feet tall, and weighs about one hundred and eighty pounds.) In the old days, he used to get mad at himself after a bad showing, and sometimes he threw things around in the clubhouse. Virdon remained calm, although he was clearly puzzled. (719) 200-8191. Has he lost his velocity? Blass, then 29, still wishes he had talked longer, told his neighbors more of what was, and still is in his heart. When I was a boy, I used to make up those fictitious games where I was always pitching in the bottom of the ninth in the World Series. He didnt want to subject Karen to more of the struggle. 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.. He finished the 1973 season with one of the worst records ever compiled by a major league pitcherwon three, lost nine, a 9.81 earned run average, 84 walks in 89 innings . He cracked a thumb while fielding a grounder in 1966. Karen's Quotes "Be yourself; everyone else is already taken." Blass did hit a number of players in his career, of course, but he never caused anyone to go on the disabled list or, for that matter, to miss even one days work. I didnt know how to solve my problem, but I knew I had to solve it. Bradenton, FL Upper St Clair, PA Upper Saint Clair, PA. Stephen Blass. Pirates broadcaster and World Series champion Steve Blass is congratulated by his wife, Karen, during a ceremony honoring his 60 years of service with the team Saturday, Sept. 28, 2019, at PNC Park. HARTFORD, Conn. Steve Blass had just pitched the game of his life, of any pitcher's life, beating the Orioles, 2-1, in Game 7 of the World Series. This was understandable, for he was in limbo. That year, in his first outing Blass pitched five scoreless innings in relief against the Braves, facing, among others, Hank Aaron. Nobodys ever enjoyed winning a big-league game more than I have. Ive got to work very carefully to him, because when hes hot hes capable of hitting it out anytime., Well, the sliders only been fair today. Steves humor in the clubhouse was unmatched, relief pitcher Dave Giusti said. in physical education at Syracuse. Write Karen Blass' 1st recommendation. I was a total Indians fan, completely buggy. Sustaining this kind of control over a stretch of, say, one hundred and thirty pitches in a seven- or eight-inning appearance places such excruciating demands on a hurlers body and psyche that even the most successful pitchers regularly have games when they simply cant get the job done. (His pay, which had been ninety thousand dollars in 1973, was cut to seventy-five thousand for the next season, and then to sixty-three thousand this spring.) View. Lamb Harriet T Mather. His June 1975 profile of Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Steve Blass who suffered, legendarily, from the yips is among his favorites. The Pirates had scored again in the eighth, but the Orioles had responded with a run of their own and had brought the tying run around to third base before Blass shut them off once and for all. The Blasses and I walked slowly along together over the thick new grass, toting gloves and helmets and Karens fold-up lawn chair, and at the parking lot the party divided into two carsKaren and the boys homeward bound, and Steve Blass and I off to a nearby shopping center to order one large cheese-and-peppers-and-sausage victory pizza, to go. Then, in the fourth, there were a couple of bases on balls and maybe a bad call by the ump on a close pitch, and suddenly there was a complete reversal. 1 bid. Following his rousing success in 1972, Blass was inexplicably bad in 1973. Steve was startled by the unfamiliar view. In the sixth, Blass walked Darrell Evans. and an M.A. Steve Blass, who is now thirty-three, is out of baseball, having been recently driven into retirement by two years of pitching wildnessa sudden, near-total inability to throw strikes. Ive had my own ideas about Steves pitching, about the mystery, but they havent made much difference. The pitching staff included Bob Moose, Bob Veale ( and later pitching coach for the Utica Blue Sox ), and Steve Blass. He was seriously affected by the death of Roberto Clemente. The Blasses place in Falls Village included an old barn with an interestingly angled roof, against which young Steve Blass played hundreds of one-man games (his four brothers and sisters were considerably younger) with a tennis ball. By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. Because of Steve, the clubhouse was never completely silent, even after a loss. Another Pirate said, Steve was about ninety per cent of the good feeling on this club. CELEBRITY GOSSIPY BIO. In this business, you bet on character. Wed stop at an all-night restaurant every now and then, and Id walk in with a two-day beard and my old Charleston Charlies uniform on, looking like go-to-hell, Blass said. If he was animated, from the yips is among his favorites he... Cubs won, 20, but i went out there very tense and anxious every.! 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