On any level, baseball is a tough game if it isnt really fun, Blass said. HARTFORD, Conn. Steve Blass had just pitched the game of his life, of any pitcher's life, beating the Orioles, 2-1, in Game 7 of the World Series. Karencita Blass. He was in great physical shape, as usual, and his arm felt fine; in his entire pitching career, Blass never experienced a sore arm. Select this result to view Karen Louise Blass's phone number, address, and more. Roland Hemond, the general manager of the White Sox, was at Bradenton that day, and he said, It was the most heartbreaking thing I have ever seen in baseball.. But the moment a batter stood in against him he became a different pitcher, especially when throwing a fastballa pitcher apparently afraid of seriously injuring somebody. 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.. Sunday will be Steve Blass' day, too, even if there's not a pregame ceremony like Saturday. See Photos. (Blasss brother-in-law, John Lamb, suffered a fractured skull when hit by a line drive in spring training in 1971, and it was more than a year before he recovered, but Blasss real pitching triumphs all came after that.). Way to go. We both laughed. He walked Mike Lum, throwing one pitch behind him in the process, which allowed Evans to move down to second. . I dont think anybodys ever said that maybe I just lost my control. Dr. Harrison is an optometrist who has helped develop a system of optometherapy, designed to encourage athletes to concentrate on the immediate physical task at handhitting a ball, throwing a strikeby visualizing the act in advance; his firm was once retained by the Kansas City Royals baseball team, and his patients have included a number of professional golfers and football players. I had some books along, and we had plenty of wine and beer on the bus, so the time went by somehow. He paused and then shook his head. The child in him is a great thingweve all loved itand maybe he was suddenly afraid he was losing it. Staff Sergeant Steve Blass died Monday, March 11, 2013 at the age of 27 in a Black Hawk, Black Hat 14, UH-60L #270 Helicopter crash in southern Afghanistan which also killed four other members of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. Steve was startled by the unfamiliar view. His totals for the one and one-third innings were seven runs, five hits, six bases on balls, and three wild pitches. Especially when there are young people growing up there. But Steve Blass never had a good day in baseball after this thing hit him.. Which of the two, I keep wondering, was happier that afternoon about the Pirates championship and his part in it? But then he suddenly shut up about it, and he never talked that way again. Sign Up. Im going to try to throw strikes and not get too fine. His was, to be sure, a famous victorya close and bitterly fought pitchers battle against the Orioles Mike Cuellar, in which the only score for seven innings had been a solo home run by the celebrated Pirate outfielder Roberto Clemente. Id throw the ball up, and then Id be diving into the weeds for pop-ups or running back and calling for the long fly balls, and all. Its Gimme the ball, boom! Other occupants: Lamb Harriet T Mather. in physical education at Syracuse. The crowd is there, this is the World Series, and all of a sudden youre locked into something. Los Angeles, CA 90010. The fastball is a great healer. I guess I dont have a tendency to go into things in much depth. Lived in. On a wall opposite a long sofa there was, among other things, a plaque representing the J. Roy Stockton Award for Outstanding Baseball Achievement, a Dapper Dan Award for meritorious service to Pittsburgh, a shiny metal bat with the engraved signatures of the National League All-Stars of 1972, a 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates World Champions bat, a signed photograph of President Nixon, and a framed, decorated proclamation announcing Steve Blass Day in Falls Village, Connecticut: Be it known that this twenty-second day of October in the year of our Lord 1971, the citizens of Falls Village do set aside and do honor with pride Steve Blass, the tall skinny kid from Falls Village, who is now the hero of baseball and will be our hero always. It was signed by the towns three selectmen. Blass never pitched well in the majors after Clementes death. In the old days, he used to get mad at himself after a bad showing, and sometimes he threw things around in the clubhouse. Ad Choices. But it never happenedBlass saw to it that it didnt. CELEBRITY GOSSIPY BIO. I guess Herb Score was my real heroI actually pitched against him once in Indianapolis, in 63, when he was trying to make a comebackbut I knew the whole team by heart. Douglas D Blass and Randall Cheney are also associated with this address. With Steve, everything is right out in the open, Karen said. This insider's view of the humorous and bizarre journey of . See Photos. On April 24, 2014, the Jamestown Jammers hosted a special event in Warren featuring Pittsburgh Pirates player and announcer Steve Blass. Thus, it may be posited as a rule that a major-league hurler who gives up an average of just over three and a half runs per game is about at the middle of his professionan average pitcher. He looked much more like a commuter than like a professional athlete. Blass has known the best and the worst of Pirates seasons on a personal level. He poured himself another cup of coffee and lit up a Garcia y Vega. This was understandable, for he was in limbo. All Ive ever wanted to do since I was six years old was to keep on playing baseball. He tried pitching from the outfield, with the sweeping motion of a fielder making a long peg. They have also lived in Pittsburgh, PA. Karen is related to Meghan Chandler Blass and Chris F Blass as well as 2 additional people. Some of his pitches were close to the strike zone, but most were not. About Karen Blass. Lamb, who leaves . At another point, he decided to throw every single day in the bullpen, to see if he could recapture his groove All it did was to get me very, very tired, Blass told me. (He was wilder than hell, Blass said. 0:56. He walked 84 batters . The 1972 season, when Blass won 19 games and made the National League All-Star team, was his best in terms of numbers. The Blasses place in Falls Village included an old barn with an interestingly angled roof, against which young Steve Blass played hundreds of one-man games (his four brothers and sisters were considerably younger) with a tennis ball. The fastball is my best pitch, but Id get right to the top of my delivery and then something would take over, and Id know even before I released the ball that it wasnt going to be in the strike zone. I was a total Indians fan, completely buggy. The biggest picture in the room hung over the sofaan enlarged color photograph of the Blass family at the Father-and-Sons Day at Three Rivers Stadium in 1971. Thats one of the concepts of Dr. Harrisons program, you knowvisualization. Bio gossipy. 2023 Cond Nast. He is friendly and informal, with an attractive smile. There was no game there, or anythingI just had to see how it looked.. 64 books | 59 friends Michele Neeson. In this business, you bet on character. . Blass is a modest man, both in temperament and in background, and his success and fame were quite sudden and, to some degree, unexpected. Then, in the fourth, there were a couple of bases on balls and maybe a bad call by the ump on a close pitch, and suddenly there was a complete reversal. I said, Hes ready, we can use him! Funny. Early that season, however, baseball suddenly stopped being fun for him. There are central areas you cant infringe on with him. I dont think there are too many here who are thinking, Look, theres the wild man. Ive had hundreds and hundreds of lettersI dont know how manyand not one of them was down on me., In the game, Bob Gibson pitched against the Pirates Jerry Reuss. Learning the names of all the kids is the hard part, he said to me. Occasionally, the poor performance is repeated, then extended. No, I couldnt do that., After the end of the 1973 season, Blass joined the Pirates team in the Florida Instructional League (an autumn institution that exists mostly to permit the clubs to look over their prime minor-league prospects), where he worked intensively with a longtime pitching coach, Don Osborn, and appeared in three games. 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. (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. Swinging strike. He has the arm of a twenty-year-old. The low, low minors. It may also be seen, in a much enlarged version, on one wall of the office of Joe L. Brown, the general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates, in Three Rivers Stadium. How much is Steve Blass worth? Im real proud of the fact that this thing hasnt bothered us at home. He was a different man out there., Blass walked eight men in the fourth inning and gave up eight runs. It was his second game of the spring as a White Sox coach, and between innings one of the young outfielders said to him, Hey, Mr. Blass, how come youre not playing with the Pirates at Three Rivers today?, Well, Blass said equably, Im not in baseball anymore., Twilight and the end of the game approached at about the same speed, and I kept losing track of the count on the batters. You may leave a message for the family by clicking here. Id always play a full gamea made-up game, with two big-league teamsand Id write down the line score as I went along, and keep the results. In his first start, against the Dodgers in Los Angeles, he pitched against Don Drysdale and won, 42. All that matters is his performance, which will be measured, with utter coldness, by the stats. Never. She paused, and then she said, I think he directed his anger toward making the situation livable here at home. They urged him to cut loose with the fastball. I had talked that day to a number of Blasss old teammates, and all of them had mentioned his cheerfulness and his jokes, and what they had meant to the team over the years. .. After that last game, Baltimore manager Earl Weaver said, Clemente was great, all right, but if it hadnt been for Mr. Blass, we might be popping the corks right now.. Home Real Estate, LLC. 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. Blass, who had not pitched in six weeks, was extremely anxious about this test; he walked the streets of Chicago on the night before the game, and could not get to sleep until after five in the morning. His two Series victories, by contrast, were momentous by any standardand, indeed, were among the very best pitching performances of his entire seven years in the majors. That year, in his first outing Blass pitched five scoreless innings in relief against the Braves, facing, among others, Hank Aaron. Morgan wont be stealing, probably, Blass said. He is an actor, known for Abduction (2011), 1972 National League Championship Series (1972) and 1971 National League Championship Series (1971). Ive had the greatest moments a person could ever want. Ive had good luck against him with that sort of stuff.. 2 2. (He is said to have once thrown twenty-seven consecutive balls in a spring-training game.) 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. I think there are things weighing on him, and I think he may be so angry inside that hes afraid to throw the ball. When I was pitching well, I was doing that very thing. And I felt that even this might not be enough for him. . 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. They have two children. . As a result, he was of very little use to the Pirates even in batting practice. Stephen is related to Emily Harwood White and Vicki Ann Blass as well as 1 additional person. The enormous alterations of professional sport in the past three decades, and especially the prodigious inflation of franchises and salaries, have made it evident even to the most thoughtless fan that the play he has come to see is serious indeed, and that the heart of the game is not physical but financial. I had all kinds of games, with different, very complicated ground rules, he said. 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). He gave up two runs in the second, but he seemed to throw without much tension, and he even struck out Bill Melton, the Chicago third baseman, with a fastball. Karen Lamb March 18, 1948 - December 7, 2020 Karen Lamb was born on March 18, 1948 and passed away on December 7, 2020 and is under the care of Casdorph & Curry Funeral Home. 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. He has a tendency to go after that kind of pitch. Both of his arms are flung wide, and he, too, is shouting. 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. The best result we found for your search is Karen Louise Blass age 80+ in Bradenton, FL in the South Bradenton neighborhood. 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. Steve Blass was with the team through this stretch, but he took no part in the campaign, and by now he was almost silent in the clubhouse. $0.99. As with the other aspects of the game, statistics define his work andday by day, inning by inningwhether he is getting it done. The players and coaches and fans I talked to about Steve Blass brought up a few other names, but then they quickly realized that the cases were not really the same. 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. Find your friends on Facebook. Nobodys ever enjoyed winning a big-league game more than I have. . Blass said, We got in the car, and I floored it all the way across Ohio. Karen Lamb Steve Blass/. This, the third and central Y in the picture, is immobile. 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. 79 (18 1942) Steve Blass/. Steve has worked at being a man and being a father and a husband. of 9.00, were also his major-league figures for the year, because late in April the Pirates sent him down to the Charleston (West Virginia) Charlies, their farm team in the Class AAA International League. Now, after ball one, Ill give him a medium-to-slow curveball and try to get it over the platejust throw it for a strike., Now I throw him a real slow curveballa regular rainbow. Perfect. Thats what happened in that World Series game, when I kept throwing that big slop curveball to Boog Powell, and it really ruined him. Joe Brown had told Blass that the end of the line might be approaching. (323) 965-1422. Karen Blais. Karen Lamb 10 likes. Like. Ill give him a slider, but awayoff the outside.. Brooke Lamb, 42 Karen Prosser Ann Patricia Hampton Colleen, 65 Jerry Grice, 78 Cindy Grice, 73 Karen Walliker, 72. has lived in Boring, OR Sandy, OR Gresham, OR Boise, ID Perez had shortened up on the bat a little, but he took the pitch. Steves a very private person.. View the profiles of people named Karen Lamb on Facebook. He lost the will to win. The Pirate organization had been extraordinarily patient, but was, after all, in the business of baseball. This was a late-afternoon date in the Upper St. Clair (Pennsylvania) Recreation League schedule, played between the White Sox and the Orioles on a field behind the Dwight D. Eisenhower Elementary SchoolLittle League baseball, but at a junior and highly informal level. He was a terrific mimic. He makes you play his game.. He was never a blazer. 111 books | 680 friends Kirsty. He told me he did not enjoy brushing back hitters but had done so when it was obviously called for. In this segment he reminisces about . Steve Blass was born on April 18, 1942. 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. Then suddenly, he lost his ability to pitch and it never returned. He could do Roberto Clementenot just the way he moved but the way he talked. 'The Mooncatcher's Rescue' is out now, published by Walker Books, illustrated by Lia Visirin. He lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 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. It is directly behind the overlapping hand and glove of the dancers, and it binds and recapitulates the lines of force and the movements and the theme of the work, creating a composition as serene and well ordered as a Giotto. The Pirates had finally released him late in March (outrighted him, in baseball parlance), near the end of the spring-training season, and he had subsequently decided not to continue his attempts to salvage his pitching form in the minor leagues. I think thats why I enjoyed it all so much when it did come along, when the good things did happen.. His salary at the beginning of 1971the year of his two great Series winswas forty thousand dollars; two years later, it was ninety thousand, and there were World Series and playoff checks on top of that. He was afraid of injuryafraid of being struck by a line drive. Blass refuses to make jokes about these nostrums. Last year, I went through something like Steves crisis. Three days later, the Pirates held a press conference to announce that they had requested waivers from the other National League clubs, with the purpose of giving Blass his unconditional release. SEND FLOWERS Add a Memory Share Obituary . In spite of such hovering and inexplicable hazards, every big-league pitcher knows exactly what is expected of him. Slow-motion films of his delivery were studied and compared with films taken during some of his best games of the past; much of his motion, it was noticed, seemed extraneous, but he had thrown exactly the same way at his peak. How many seasons did Steve Blass play? He was an infielder before he became a trainer, and played one season in the majorswith the Pirates, in 1952): Steve is unique physically. Because of Steve, the clubhouse was never completely silent, even after a loss. Another Pirate said, Steve was about ninety per cent of the good feeling on this club. Select this result to view Stephen Mark Blass's phone number, address, and more. He had mechanical difficulties, with some underlying mental cause. Blass never had a good day in baseball after this thing hasnt bothered us at.. Zone, but most were not fan, completely buggy process, will... 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