Blass tells tales of legendary MLB teammates, opponents
Steve Blass speaks at the Bethel Park Community Center.
Steve Blass speaks at the Bethel Park Community Center.
Anyone who listens to Pittsburgh Pirates broadcasts knows that color commentator Steve Blass is quite the storyteller.
He has quite the material, as he amply demonstrated earlier this month at the Bethel Park Community Center.
The former Pirates pitcher entertained those who attended the latest installment of the community’s Town Hall Speaker Series with his own series of anecdotes about playing baseball alongside and against many of the sport’s legends.
There was Bill Mazeroski, the Pirates’ Hall of Fame second baseman, who’d already joined the ranks of immortals by clubbing the winning home run in the 1960 World Series, four years before Blass joined the team as a 22-year-old pitcher. Maz imparted a piece of wisdom to the rookie that he still repeats in the broadcast booth:
“The name on the front of your uniform is more important than the name on the back.”
Blass, who lived in Upper St. Clair for 42 years, recalled the advice Mazeroski gave him prior to a pitching matchup against the Dodgers’ Sandy Koufax.
“Pitch a shutout, kid,” he said, “and we’ll play for the tie.”
It didn’t work out quite that way, but Blass fared better in his first Major League start, against another Dodger Hall of Fame hurler, the late Don Drysdale.
“I went out and won that game,” Blass said, and he also went out and pitched all nine innings. By contrast, the pitchers on the 2015 version of the Pirates have exactly zero complete games.
Blass had a penchant for finishing what he started, especially in the 1971 World Series. He beat the Baltimore Orioles – and future Hall of Famers Frank Robinson, Brooks Robinson and Jim Palmer – with two complete games, including a 2-1 victory in the deciding seventh game.
That series’ most valuable player was Roberto Clemente.
“I finished a close second, but he deserved it,” Blass said. “He put on a show for the whole baseball world to see that we had been seeing around here for 20 years.”
He recalled Clemente as having more of a sense of humor than most people realized. Once, Blass told him that if he ever were traded to another team, he’d pitch Clemente inside because he had so much success against pitchers throwing toward the outside of the plate.
“Blass, I’m going to tell you one thing,” Clemente replied. “You pitch me inside, and I’m going to hit the ball to Harrisburg.”
The stories kept coming, about fun-loving Pirates teammates like Manny Sanguillen and Vic Davalillo, about opposing hitters like Hank Aaron and Pete Rose, and about Blass’ three-plus decades in the broadcast booth.
As far as his broadcasting future, Blass said that he’s 73, in good health, and “I’m going to keep doing it.”
And so Pirates fans should keep hearing plenty of Steve Blass stories.
Bethel Park’s Town Hall Speaker Series continues Nov. 18 with guest Dave Crawley of KDKA-TV.