Was Bert ever seen as one of the best of his era? Nah, although if Candy Cummings can be inducted for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153inventing\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the curveball, surely Blyleven has earned his way to the Plaque Gallery with the best breaker of his time. That pitch was some nasty medicine and universally recognized as numero uno \u00c2\u00a0during Blyleven’s pitching career.![\"\"](\"http:\/\/i758.photobucket.com\/albums\/xx226\/tedleavengood\/blylevenb_.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Was Bert even the best on his staff? \u00c2\u00a0Definitely on the 1973 Twins, his only \u00c2\u00a020 win\u00c2\u00a0season. Absolutely for the 1984 \u00c2\u00a0Indians, when he won 18 games for a 75 \u00c2\u00a0win horror of a club. Quite often he \u00c2\u00a0played second fiddle to the Gaylord \u00c2\u00a0Perrys and John Candelarias. Sometimes \u00c2\u00a0even to the Jim Bibbys.<\/p>\n
Blyleven is another version of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Sutton \u00c2\u00a0Syndrome.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I’ve always had trouble with \u00c2\u00a0Don Sutton as a Hall of Famer, though \u00c2\u00a0his numbers are indisputably worthy. \u00c2\u00a0It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just that Sutton was never a #1 kinda \u00c2\u00a0guy, rarely the ace of his own staff. In Bert\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s favor is his 287 wins for crap teams, much more remarkable than Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 324 for consistently solid teams. But I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m good with Blyleven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s election. See you in July.<\/p>\n
Robbie Alomar. The best second baseman of the last 30 years, possibly the best of the last six decades when you throw Joe Morgan into the mix. Certainly in the top five of his position all-time. A sure first ballot HOFer last year.<\/p>\n
But no. Enough writers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 delicate sensibility was shaken by Alomar\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s spitting on an umpire John Hirschbeck in 1996. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Oh, my heavens, this ruffian must be handed a stern lesson.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Please. Would these same scribes have made Ted Williams wait a year for his spewing and bat tossing? Doubtful.<\/p>\n
It was a shock that Alomar didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get in last year. Jumping from just under the needed 75% to 90% is absurd, like the Republican Senators who fought “Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Ask, Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Tell” and wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t allow it to come for a vote. Once it did, it got 65 votes, many from the same people who argued so hard against it. You think Alomar\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a bad actor a la Pete Rose? Keep him out then, but don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t give him some \u00c2\u00a0schoolmarmy punishment. It made the writers look silly.![\"Alomar](\"http:\/\/i758.photobucket.com\/albums\/xx226\/tedleavengood\/alomarvizquel-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
As to Robbie the player, there was no one as fun to watch in \u00c2\u00a0the field. No one. He was a diving, spinning, laser throwing \u00c2\u00a0artist at the keystone and, when paired with Omar Vizquel \u00c2\u00a0(see you in Cooperstown down the road O.V.), it was \u00c2\u00a0Nijinksy and Nureyev with more speed and better bats.
\nBefore the 1988 season, the spotlight was put on an Alomar, but it was Sandy Alomar Jr., Robbie\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s catcher brother who was the more heralded rookie.<\/p>\n
In many ways, Roberto\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s debut was a surprise. At the plate, Alomar was strong, powerful, a solid run producer. On the bases he was a blur. From 1988-2001, Roberto Alomar was not only the best at his position, but one of the top players in the game. At 34, of course beginning in his first season with the Mets, Alomar began a steep decline that resulted in a weak and sad end to a stellar career at the age of 36. It was sad to see him fall apart so quickly, but it didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t dim the memory of how great he was.<\/p>\n
Karen was pregnant for most of 1992, and as we neared the December due date, we had, for the second time in our married lives, a serious naming discussion. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like most names for some reason, but after watching the post-season games, one name kept repeating itself in my head: Robbie. I heard that name incessantly during the playoffs, when Alomar slugged, swiped and swooped his way to the ALCS MVP. Though he slumped in the World Series, the Blue Jays couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have won it all without him. Robbie: a great name and no one we knew had used it.<\/p>\n
So Robbie it was to be. He was two weeks late and finally arrived on January 5, 1993. That was 18 years ago yesterday, the same day his namesake received the ultimate honor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hall of Fame Election Day is the hands down best event of the post-season, with all due respect to the November issuance of the recent season\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hardware. Yesterday, Bert Blyleven and Robbie Alomar became my fellow Cooperstownians, to be enshrined this summer a few blocks away on Main St. My feelings on the pointless selection […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":699,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-hall-of-fame"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/699"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10568\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}