Joe and Bert

I hadn’t checked out Joe Posnanski’s blog in a while. I’d give anything to have his talent and his perseverance. I maintain that Joe, author of the greatest book ever written (The Soul of Baseball) also has the best blog on the planet.

Joe is able to write “curiously long posts” which include meanderings that if put on a telestrator look like John Madden’s chicken scratching play descriptions. In the neighborhood there are cul de sacs, and forks, and three pronged forks, circles which come back to the same road, and long winding roads that end up in a different county. You never know what you’ll see. For example, he’s got part of a post (maybe 2,000 words) on Barry Manilow’s CD “Greatest Songs of the Eighties.” This is the lead in to his analysis of the Baseball HOF results. To quote my buddy Kulko the Clown, “You never know where you’re going ‘till you get there.”

Somewhere past his imagining Barry singing “Against All Odds,” (“My high school senior class song. And no, I’m not going back for my 25th reunion this year. This song is why.”) he finally gets to the actual results. Ultimately he comes to Bert Blyleven, for whom he’s been a one-man band in support of his candidacy.

I agree. Here is why:

Bert Blyleven – 3,701
Walter Johnson – 3,509

That is career strikeouts. Frankly, that’s enough for me. He’s 5th all-time, ahead of, well, just about everyone. He’s over 300 ahead of Greg Maddux, who is turning 127 years old this year. Strikeouts are the purest form of evaluating pitching “stuff”, but Joe has an analysis covering shutouts which is incredible.

Here you go – learn something about Bert Blyleven. I challenge anyone to read this and not be shocked at how good he was. Well, unless you already knew how good he was.

Bert Blyleven (338 votes, 62.7%). Up only two votes this year … not a whole lot of momentum there. Sigh. I fear what Blyleven is missing is a solid theme, a slogan, a new campaign, something to rival “Most fearsome hitter of his time.” I’m not going to lie: I don’t think, “Guy whose numbers impress a lot of Internet Geeks” is getting it done for us.

Maybe we need to simply play up his shutouts. I think we all know that shutouts are good things … and they are an old fashioned thing. The old writers should APPRECIATE a good shutout. And shutouts are not things that you can just COMPILE by hanging around. Pedro Martinez is 36 years old, he has an argument as the most dominant pitcher ever, and I suspect he will NEVER throw another shutout.

So, let me kickoff the new “Project Shutout” by putting it this way:

Bert Blyleven has more shutouts than Bob Gibson. He has more shutouts than Juan Marichal. He has more shutouts than Roger Clemens and Randy Johnson — a lot more than either of them. He has more shutouts than Jim Palmer, Gaylord Perry, Fergie Jenkins or Robin Roberts. He, of course, has more shutouts than Koufax, who had his career shortened, and he has more shutouts than Phil Niekro who pitched forever. He has more shutouts than Three Finger Brown, more than Five Finger And Some Sandpaper Don Sutton, more than Early Wynn, who threw at batter’s fingers.

Bert Blyleven has more shutouts than Lefty Grove, Lefty Gomez, Lefty Hoerst, Lefty Tyler, lefty Hopper, Lefty Williams, Lefty Stewart and any other pitcher named Lefty including Steve Carlton, who was nicknamed Lefty.

Bert Blyleven has more shutouts than Bob Lemon and Jack Morris combined.

Bert Blyleven has more shutouts than Greg Maddux and Mike Mussina combined.

Bert Blyleven has more shutouts than Whitey Ford and Don Gullett combined.

Bert Blyleven has more shutouts than Bob Feller PLUS Roy Halladay.

Bert Blyleven has more shutouts than Tom Glavine PLUS John Smoltz and you could throw Babe Ruth’s 18 shutouts on top of that and still not get there.

Bert Blyleven has more shutouts than Curt Schilling PLUS Pedro Martinez PLUS Johnny Sain PLUS Two Days of Rain PLUS Roy Oswalt.

Bert Blyleven had more shutouts in 1973 than Johan Santana has in his career.

Let’s put it this way: Since 1920 — the beginning of the lively ball era — Bert Blyleven ranks fourth in shutouts. Only Warren Spahn, Nolan Ryan and Tom Seaver have thrown more shutouts. Spahn has three more. Ryan and Seaver each have one more. They are all in the Hall of Fame, first-ballot, never a doubt. I’m just not sure what we are waiting for.

Don’t make me do this same exercise with strikeouts. Because I will.

Not much to add. Bert had it and Joe has it cold. Of course, it is also clear that Joe has no life, though what’s cool is he gets paid to do research like that. Send me a dollar, and I’ll be able to say I live that dream too.