Bert Blyleven would have become a Hall of Famer this year, if the only vote that mattered belonged to Rob Dibble. Actually, if you give Dibble his head Blyleven would have strolled in on his first ballot. That's how near-nuclear Dibble went in mid-January, from his broadcast perch behind an ESPN Radio microphone, after Blyleven received his sixth Cooperstown bypass (he drew 145 votes this time) from the Baseball Writers Association of America.
Well, Dibble was mad fun to watch as a flammable relief pitcher, for a few seasons (surely, you remember the Cincinnati Reds' incendiary 1990-91 bullpen, the Nasty Boys). And he can be mad enough fun in his broadcast fustian that I can't let him pass unmolested, even if I'm the only one who knows I'm molesting him.
And when the personable Blyleven missed again, Dibble missed no chance to dribble. "Bert, forget the wins and losses. You finished almost five thousand innings," he began. (Blyleven, now a Minnesota Twins broadcaster, was on the line.) "You pitched in 700 games. You struck out almost four thousand guys. What more does one arm have to do, to prove to people that this was a gift from God, and a guy who busted his butt for 22 years, and completed 242 games, and shut out sixty teams?"
Reasonably enough, I'm certain that the gift of God to which Dibble alluded was Blyleven's otherworldly curve ball, which was one of the three most incandescent curves I've ever seen in a lifetime's baseball watching. (The other two belonged to Sandy Koufax and Dwight Gooden.) Reasonably enough again, however, it's hard to determine whether Dibble was solicitous or contemptuous of gifts from God. By the way he cracked subsequent to his radio riff, in a testy column for ESPNRadio.com, you'd wonder if he thinks the gifted from God conspire to keep the mere working stiffs from their rightful props.
"(I)t enrages me to see only certain players singled out for the Hall of Fame because they were born with a God-given specialty," he wrote. "When I take my kids to the Baseball Hall of Fame, I want them to experience the full array of talents that make the game what it is today, not just the larger-than-life freaks of nature. I want them to know that you don't have to be the biggest or the strongest to reach your goals, and that hard work and perseverance are also rewarded."
Never mind that such commentary threatens to expose Dibble as something close to a baseball philistine. The salient problem with cracking like that is that it's very suggestive and disposably inconclusive at once. You're not certain, really, of the extent to which it is either. Is Dibble saying that the Hall of Fame is too weighted toward the supernaturally endowed? Is he saying the Hall of Fame should sooner be a valedictory entitlement, a kind of gold watch honourarium weighted toward the plebeian yeomen? To whom does he refer, in fact, when he cracks upon the God-gifted freaks of nature he may believe keep the humble workmen from their proper acclaim and due reward?
Dibble on the air came precariously close to proclaiming Tom Seaver one of the obstructive God-gifted. The near-suggestion belched out as Dibble went one on one with Jim Caple, a voting member of the BBWAA who is now a columnist for ESPN's parent Website.
Caple was explaining the wherefores of his coming close enough to voting for Blyleven each year, "and yet, every year I don't." His is a view not uncommon among those who are just hesitant to strike Blyleven's plaque: Blyleven's longevity may make him look better than in fact he was. The breadth of Blyleven's career, the argument continues, shows little enough height to make him a little-to-no-hesitation Hall of Famer, but neither is it blatantly obvious that he isn't a Hall of Famer. But Blyleven, Caple continued, "really was never thought of as one of the greatest pitchers of his time," all but admitting that that hangs predominantly upon Blyleven's lack of a Cy Young Award.
Dibble pounced on that as though he now had The Proof that those overrated baseball writers were deaf, dumb, and blind to the Blyleven brilliance that you'd have seen if you'd actually played the game, you pantywaist poseur. What if saying Blyleven wasn't one of the greatest pitchers of his time is wrong, Dibble fired back. "You know what I'm saying? Because you start stacking him up against Tom Seaver, who was regarded in that way, and there's not a lot of - there's some difference, and some edge to Seaver. But it's not huge. Wouldn't you agree?"
Well, no Caple wouldn't, and didn't. Appropriately enough. There is a huge difference between Tom Seaver and Bert Blyleven. Dibble looked strictly enough at the two pitchers' career lines, seemingly, but he didn't look as far behind or below them as he should have looked to gauge the two pitchers, in their own rights and astride each other. That's a human enough thing, and without looking behind and below you can believe Blyleven close enough to being Seaver's near-equal. But if you do look behind and below, you discover a critical distinction: Seaver's peak value - the value of his highest seasons, his absolute performance heights - is way beyond Blyleven's peak value.
And it would have been so even if Seaver had never won a Cy Young Award. Seaver beats Blyleven cold on the so-called Black Ink Test (developed by Bill James, it awards points based on a pitcher's leading his league in various categories), Seaver scoring 57 to Blyleven's 16. Blyleven fattens up on the Gray Ink Test (a James creation awarding points based on a pitcher finishing in the top ten in his league in various categories) with a 239 (the average Hall of Famer: 185), but Seaver bagged himself a 290.
(Dibble might have remembered that there is a Hall of Fame pitcher, in all of whose seasons they gave the Cy Young Award, who pitched his way to Cooperstown with stupefying peak value and equivalent career value without winning even one Cy Young Award. He might have won at least three, maybe four Cy Young Awards, and at least two would have been in seasons when they gave the award to one pitcher across the board, rather than one in each league. But he had two little problems. One, in 1968, was Bob Gibson and his 1.12 ERA. The other, for a few seasons before that, was a chap named Koufax. Perhaps Dibble has heard of this pitcher - his name was Juan Marichal.)
"Blyleven's supporters insist that his victory total suffered because he pitched for a lot of bad teams, but I dispute that," Caple had written before his showdown with Dibble. And he should dispute that. For exactly half his career, Bert Blyleven pitched for decent to good teams who finished in third place or better and won three division titles, with two of the three division titlists winning the World Series. Add four other Blyleven teams finishing in fourth place, and you have a man who pitched about three-fifths of his career for teams ranging from so-so to pennant winners.
If you, like Rob Dibble, insist upon the Seaver comparison, you're going to come up short yet again. Tom Seaver didn't pitch for as many good teams as Blyleven did. (Seaver did pitch for seven third-place teams in the National League, but third place in a six-team division isn't quite as good as third place in a seven-team division.) He pitched for a few good teams, including one extraterrestrial World Series champion and one pennant winner who climbed atop a bad division at the last minute (read: September). But Seaver did pitch for a lot of bad teams, including eight losing teams and four who couldn't get anywhere close to a winning record unless Seaver himself pitched.
Blyleven, however, has another weight that should be considered strongly when evaluating him. With three exceptions, all at the end of his career, Blyleven pitched in parks that favoured hitters over pitchers, either moderately (Metropolitan Stadium, Municipal Stadium), considerably (Three Rivers Stadium), or insane-in-the-brain (the Metrodome). He may not have come closer to resembling Tom Seaver's near-equal if he'd pitched as many years as Seaver did in an all-but-pitcher's park. But he might have looked more obviously like a Hall of Famer.
Assume that Blyleven will get into Cooperstown in due course. (James's Hall of Fame Standards test shows Blyleven meeting 50 percent of the Hall of Fame standards. This is exactly what an average Hall of Famer would meet.) It would be no disgrace to say that he was a great pitcher, a bona-fide Hall of Famer, who wasn't quite the kind of great you associate with a peak value superstar. He doesn't have to be to get his plaque. There are plenty of Hall of Famers who got there entirely, or almost so, upon their career values, and they're no less Hall of Famers for it. You don't help Blyleven's case by ascribing something to him that simply wasn't there and doesn't demean him for its absence.
If you join Rob Dibble, and insist the Seavers of this world are some sort of over-attended, God-blessed freaks of nature, please be reminded that the adjective most often used to describe Seaver himself (behind "terrific," of course, as in Tom Terrific) was "professional." That means, among other things, busting his butt. There are those even among the yeomen who stand high enough beyond their fellows. But even when they did do the gold watch thing, they didn't give it to just anyone among the working stiffs.
» Jeff Kallman is a writer and editor living in Huntington Beach, California
Also by Jeff Kallman
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» More submissions
Copyright © 2003 by Jeff Kallman. Posted May 19, 2003.
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