It didnt even have to be major-league ball. He tried to condense his 60 years with the Pirates into a form that would fit on that one sheet, but there were too many people to acknowledge and far too many stories to tell. However, it is a fact that a professional athleteand most especially a baseball playerfaces a much more difficult task in attempting to regain lost form than an ailing businessman, say, or even a troubled artist; no matter how painful his case has been, the good will of his associates or the vagaries of critical judgment matter not at all when he tries to return. The best season-long earned-run average of the modern baseball era was Bob Gibsons 1.12 mark, set in 1968. How much is Steve Blass worth? I should know., The game rushed along, as games always do when Gibson is pitching. Nobody knows, but some speculation is permissibleindeed, is perhaps demanded of anyone who is even faintly aware of the qualities of Steve Blass and the depths of his suffering. The sinking fastball tends to tail off just a little., Well, now we come back with another slider, and Ill try to throw it inside. I know what Ive done in baseball, and I give myself all the credit in the world for it. In this business, you bet on character. His pitching motion, so jittery and unclassical, at last let him down for good. 0:56. Danny Murtaugh and Bill Virdon (who is now the Yankees pilot) both expressed their admiration for Blass but said they had no idea what had happened to him. This insider's view of the humorous and bizarre journey of . 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. They urged him to cut loose with the fastball. Sunday will be Steve Blass' day, too, even if there's not a pregame ceremony like Saturday. He was never a blazer. Following his rousing success in 1972, Blass was inexplicably bad in 1973. Select this result to view Stephen Mark Blass's phone number, address, and more. You could argue in 1971 that he could have topped Roberto Clemente for the World Series MVP awardhe pitched a four-hitter in that famous final game. Advertisement. . The remaining pieces of evidence (if, indeed, they have any part in the mystery) have been recounted here. 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. He tried not to think much about baseball, and he didnt work on his pitching. He suddenly laughed. 'The Mooncatcher's Rescue' by Karen Lamb is available online. Los Angeles. Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, MK19. It was a horrendous disappointment for the Pittsburgh Pirates and their fans, for which no blame at all could be attached to Blass. Then it was over. 79 (18 1942) Steve Blass/. Blass laid off slow pitches here, so Sanguillen would have a chance to throw out Morgan if he was stealing. . Thats pretty heavy, he said after a moment. But sometimes, of course, what is happening on the field seems to speak to something deeper within us; we stop cheering and look on in uneasy silence, for the man out there is no longer just another great athlete, an idealized hero, but only manonly ourself. Nolan Ryan, of the Angels, walked two hundred and two men in three hundred and thirty-three innings, or 5.4 per game; however, he helped himself considerably by fanning three hundred and sixty-seven, or just under ten men per game. Im real proud of the fact that this thing hasnt bothered us at home. Think about the enormity of that feat. William Ralph Blass (June 22, 1922 - June 12, 2002) was an American fashion designer. He has been married to Karen Lamb since October 5, 1963. . (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.) The summer of 1972the year after his splendid World Serieswas in most respects the best season that Steve Blass ever had. share to facebook . Karen Blass. Stephen is related to Emily Harwood White and Vicki Ann Blass as well as 1 additional person. 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. A lot of the Sox struck out, too, and a lot of players on both teams walked more than I could count, in fact. PITTSBURGH -- Steve Blass sat in the press conference room at PNC Park on Tuesday morning with a piece of paper in front of him. Karen Blass #176481. Lots of other stuff. SSG STEVE BLASS passed away on March 11, 2013 at the age of 27 in ESTHERVILLE, Iowa. Writer Kirk Robinson stated that, "In 1972, if you had to choose any pitcher in the . Blass once told me that there were at least seventeen theories about the reason for his failure. He was in great physical shape, as usual, and his arm felt fine; in his entire pitching career, Blass never experienced a sore arm. In this segment he reminisces about . Im not a student of pitching and Im not a psychologist. The other, more serious theories are sometimes presented alone, sometimes in conjunction with others. Thats just to set up another slider outside., Were ahead one and two nowright? Blass said. Pretty good inning, I said. Other elite athletes have experienced the same loss of ability. At the beginning of the 1973 season, Steve Blass had a lifetime earned-run average of 3.25 and was averaging 1.9 walks per game. I was afraid of embarrassing myself again, and letting down the club., On September 6th, the Pirate front office announced that Danny Murtaugh, who had served two previous terms as the Pirates manager, was replacing Bill Virdon at the helm; the Pirates were caught up in a close, four-team division race, and it was felt that Murtaughs experience might bring them home. It must have been hell for him, Dave Giusti says. I dont know the answer, Bill Virdon told me in the Yankee clubhouse. I remember it was raining as we came out of the tunnel in Pittsburgh, and I drove straight to Forbes Field and went in and found the attendant and put my uniform on, at two in the afternoon. I was totally unnerved. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. When Ted Simmons stood in for the visitors, Blass said, Hes always hit me pretty good. Quick Facts She was born on 1953-01-31. Well, I really did it. I think most progress in baseball comes from enjoying it and then wanting to extend yourself a little, wanting it to become more. Some of his pitches were close to the strike zone, but most were not. 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. How much did Steve Blass weigh when playing? Steve Blass is a former pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates and has been broadcasting their games as color commentator since 1987. Karen L Blass are some of the alias or nicknames that Karen has used. Steve Blass passed over my questions about whether he had ever felt this kind of fear when on the mound. He was, in short, an extremely successful and useful big-league pitcher, and was understandably enjoying his work. He wont want to take the bat out of Benchs hands. He released another cloud of cigar smoke, thinking hard. Suite 650. It was being forced out of him. Has it gone dead? Id have lasted until I was fifty.. Blass spent four days with him, and then rejoined the Pirates, this time as a batting-practice pitcher. The sun will come up tomorrow. Most of all, perhaps, he sustained his self-regard by not taking out his terrible frustrations on Karen and the boys. The gamethe White Sox vs. the Orioleswas a close, 31 affair, in which the winning White Sox pitcher, John McKenzie, struck out seventeen batters, in six innings. The select levels of pitching proficiency (and salary) begin below the 3.00 line; in fact, an E.R.A. In a very brief time, his earned-run average and his bases-on-balls record were the worst in the league Blass got along well with his teammates, but there were other problems. Three days after Blass married high school sweetheart Karen Lamb in 1963, he went to the Dominican Republic not for vacation, but to learn to throw the slider. Clemente loved it. But I couldnt always share that, and I didnt have his ability to keep things under control.. 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. They can bury you before you even get started. I didnt know how to solve my problem, but I knew I had to solve it. I said I had admired the relaxed, low-key tenor of the game we had just seen, and he told me that his own Little League coach, back in Connecticuta man named Jerry Fallonhad always seen to it that playing baseball on his club was a pleasure. Karen and Steve pointed this out to me, and then they went back to their arrival in the big time on that rainy long-ago first day in Pittsburgh and Steves insisting on trying on his Pirate uniform, and they leaned back in their chairs and laughed about it again. Blasss best friends in baseball are Tony Bartirome, Dave Giusti, and Nelson King (who, along with Bob Prince, is part of the highly regarded radio-and-television team that covers the Pirate games). At that point, he said, I was looking for even a little bit of successone good inning, a few real fastballs, anything to hold on to that might halt my negative momentum. The departure of a superstar leaves an almost visible empty place on a successful team, and the leaders next in linewho in this case would certainly include Steve Blassfeel the inescapable burden of trying to fill the gap. Theres one possibility nobody has brought up, he said. In any case, Blass wanted to go. Intelligent, knows how to win. Hey, you can really see how it works from here, cant you? he said. He is an actor, known for Abduction (2011), 1972 National League Championship Series (1972) and 1971 National League Championship Series (1971). The child in him is a great thingweve all loved itand maybe he was suddenly afraid he was losing it. (One of the stars just behind him was John Lamb, who later pitched for the Pirates; Lambs older sister, Karen, was a classmate of Steves, and in time she found herself doubly affiliated with the Pirate mound staff. At one point, he leaned forward a little and peered into the Pirate dugout and murmured, Is Dock Ellis over in his regular corner there?, but for the most part he kept his eyes on the field. Only ten holes separated his two aces. Then, at some point, I turned the corner. 1 bid. Click, click, click. He was an infielder before he became a trainer, and played one season in the majorswith the Pirates, in 1952): Steve is unique physically. It was the swing that put Richie back on his heels like that. Later on, Richie Zisk hit a homer off Gibson, on a three-and-two count, and Blass murmured, The high slider is one of the hittable pitches when it isnt just right. Steve Lamb Steve Burt Lamb Stave Ann B Jill Lamb S Afmd Jill A Blackburn. Blass, once his difficulties commenced, was helpless. People named Karen Blass. "I had all kinds of games, with different, very complicated ground rules. Blass repeated mantras and meditated twice a day for about two months; he found that it relaxed him, but it did not seem to have much application to his pitching. See Photos. What pleased him most that year was his consistency. 2d 17h. With me, everything was just a continuation of what had come before. Lamb was also ordered to repay the money she stole. Its hard. 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. 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. Log In. His body is tilting toward the center of the picture, his mask is held in his right hand, his big glove is still on his left hand, and his mouth is open in a gigantic shout of pleasure. 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 . 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. 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. (National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum) Lowering his ERA to 2.12, Blass won 18 games and emerged as the clear ace of the Pirates' staff. Morgan, I decided, eventually singled to right on a curve in on the handlea lucky hitbut then Blass retired his next Cincinnati hitter, Dan Driessen, who popped out on a slider. Some of them mentioned Rex Barney, a Dodger fastball pitcher of the nineteen-forties, who quit baseball while still a young man because of his uncontrollable wildness; Barney, however, had only one good year, and it is fair to say that he never did have his great stuff under control. 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. He says he hated the idea of hitting and possibly sidelining one of his teammates, but he is convinced that this anxiety was the result of his control problems rather than the cause. At this ballgame, he looked like any young suburban father who had caught an early train home from the office in order to see his kids in action. Ill throw it in the dirt to show it to himget him geared to that kind of speed. They seemed a bit brusque about it, but then I realized, of course, that ballplayers are forever disappearing from big-league dugouts; the managers concern is with those who remainwith todays lineup. 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. I guess I dont have a tendency to go into things in much depth. He had become an extra wheel. 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 played his entire career in Major League Baseball as a right-handed pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1964 and from 1966 through 1974. Finally, Murtaugh came out very slowly to the mound and told Blass that he was taking him out of the game; Dave Giusti came in to relieve his old roommate. He won a World Series title in 1971, earned an All-Star selection the following season and retired from the diamond a few . and in bookshops internationally. Steve Blass was born in Canaan, CT. How tall is Steve Blass? He and Karen rented an apartment in Charleston, and the whole family moved down when the school year ended; David and Chris enjoyed the informal atmosphere around the ballpark, where they were permitted to shag flies in batting practice. He didnt want to subject Karen to more of the struggle. Hes an exceptional offspeed hitter, and will give himself up with men on basegive up a little power to get that run in.. The really strange thing is that after this trouble started, Steve never showed any feelings about his pitching. He was wearing slacks and a T-shirt and an old sweater (he had a golfing date later that day), and he looked very young. shoom! Its that good feeling. There are central areas you cant infringe on with him. Karen Blass lives in Pittsburgh, PA; previous city include Bradenton FL. 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. It was an outstanding Series, made memorable above all by the play of Roberto Clemente, who batted .414 over the seven games and fielded his position with extraordinary zeal. I must have thrown it three out of four pitches to him, and I just knew it was going to be there. Steve Forrest, Karen Lamm appearing in the ABC tv movie 'The Hatfields and the McCoys'. Family (1) Spouse Roberto Clemente, of course, is dead; he was killed on December 31, 1972, in Puerto Rico, in the crash of a plane he had chartered to carry emergency relief supplies to the victims of an earthquake in Nicaragua. 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. or. Other occupants: Lamb Harriet T Mather. He would tell me about it, and get angry and hurt. Joe Morgan stood in, and Blass puffed on his cigar and looked at the ceiling. My first big-league autograph was Hank Majeski., Blass grew up into an athletea good sandlot football player, a second-team All-State Class B basketball star, but most of all a pitcher, like his father. 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. This is one reason that athletes are paid so well, and one reason that fear of failurethe unspeakable chokingis their deepest and most private anxiety. He worked the count to 32 on Carlos May, and then threw the next pitch behind him. A big-league fastball comes in on the batter at about eighty-five or ninety miles an hour, completing its prescribed journey of sixty feet six inches in less than half a second, and, if it is a strike, generally intersects no more than an inch or two of the seventeen-inch-wide plate, usually near the upper or lower limits of the strike zone; curves and sliders arrive a bit later but with intense rotation, and must likewise slice off only a thin piece of the black if they are to be effective. 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. Karen M Lamb. He didn't. Their fastball comes in high, their curves hang, the rest of their prime weapons desert them. He could do rat soundsthe noise a rat makes running. What a player is thinking is about eighty per cent of it. Its Gimme the ball, boom! He tried pitching from the outfield, with the sweeping motion of a fielder making a long peg. 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 walked 84 batters . They have two children. . There was no game there, or anythingI just had to see how it looked.. 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. What happened to Blass isn't an anomaly. At eleven that same night, they reboarded the bus and drove to Pawtucket, Rhode Island, for their next date, arriving at about nine in the morning. <br><br>With a dual background in both the . Then baseball suddenly stopped being fun for him. By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. I had all kinds of games, with different, very complicated ground rules, he said. then arched his back, cricked his neck oddly, rolled his head a few times, took up a stance in the back corner of the batters box, with his bat held high, and glared out at the pitcher imperiouslyClemente, to the life. I had never seen such a spirited gesture in a serious baseball setting, and since then I have come to realize that Steve Blasss informality and boyish play constituted an essential private style, as original and as significant as Clementes eagle-like pride, and that each of them was merely responding in his own way to the challenges of an extremely difficult public profession. Dusty Baker singled, driving in a run. (He is said to have once thrown twenty-seven consecutive balls in a spring-training game.) He became smug and was no longer hungry. He poured himself another cup of coffee and lit up a Garcia y Vega. Id like to work on that a couple of times first, because its early and he swings so well. It was the worst experience of my baseball life, Blass told me. Joe Brown had told Blass that the end of the line might be approaching. At least that problem could be solved now. Toward the end of his 30-minute speech . As with the other aspects of the game, statistics define his work andday by day, inning by inningwhether he is getting it done. Lamb, who leaves . Morgan wont be stealing, probably, Blass said. He pitched on opening day, against the Cards, but threw poorly and was relieved, although the Pirates eventually won the game. Every accomplishment, every stage of the gameyou have no idea how much he loved it, how he enjoyed the game.. Those of us (fans and players alike) who return to the ballpark in the belief that the game and the rules are unchangedmerely a continuation of what we have known and loved in the pastare deluding ourselves, perhaps foolishly, perhaps tragically. Washington, DC 20515. mark of 2.28 and Catfish Hunters 2.49 in the A.L. Like. 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. 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. Select this result to view Karen Louise Blass's phone number, address, and more. When Chris Blass went down swinging in the fourth, his father came over and said, The sinker down and away is tough. Steve Blass has a longish, lightly freckled face, a tilted nose, and an alert and engaging expression. On one sidethe left, as you look at the picturethe catcher is running toward the camera at full speed, with his upraised arms spread wide. Updated: 3:31 PM EST Jan 15, 2019. Down there, youve got to look at it all in pieces. 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. ? he said. 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