Saturday, January 8, 2011

Bert, you are hereby in the Baseball Hall of Fame!

My baseball boyfriend, Bert Blyleven, who could be my dad and told me that when I met him, has finally been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame after being on the ballot each year for the last 14 years. Eleven of his 22 seasons were with the Minnesota Twins so it's good to hear that he will be entering the Baseball Hall of Fame as a Twin as it is not the player's decision.  He's the fourth Minnesota Twin to be elected to the Hall of Fame.  The others are Harmon Killebrew, Rod Carew and Kirby Puckett.  The induction ceremony will take place at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum on Sunday, July 24th, 2011 in Cooperstown, NY.

I love you, Bert Blyleven!  I'll be wearing your jersey again this year to Target Field in honor of you.
 
Here are some Bert stats from the Twins website:
The right-hander notched 287 career wins, 27th on the all-time list, and is fifth in career strikeouts with 3,701.  He is 11th in games started with 685 and his 60 shutouts are ninth all-time.  Blyleven also ranks 13th all-time in innings pitched with 4,970.  In his second stint with the Twins from 1985-1988, Blyleven led the Twins to the World Series in 1987, going 3-1 with a 3.42 ERA in four starts that postseason.

I don't know if I have any Blyleven baseball cards but I dug up this old card for you.  It's from 1988 and is a round baseball card that was included in a loaf of Master bread, which I don't think exists anymore. There were 12 cards in the set featuring different Minnesota Twins.  I loved getting new loaves of bread and seeing what card was in there. I did end up collecting all 12 cards in the set and still have all of them, including some duplicates.



1 comment:

Jamie said...

OMG I remember those from the bread! Very cool Bert - it's his turn to be circled!