Bert's Buddy Blog: October 2008

Friday, October 10, 2008

That's a Wrap....Until Next Time

Frank: The Minnesota Twins finished off the surprisingly good 2008 season with a disappointing 1-0 loss to the Chicago White Sox in the American League Central Division tiebreaker last Tuesday night. In spite of the outcome ending our season, the Twins should take pride in defying the experts and look forward to a very bright future.

The Twins surprised a lot of people this year, who expected the team to go through a rebuilding season, not to be a contender. Now we seem to be set up pretty well for the future, with a bevy of talented young players. Carlos Gomez, Delmon Young, Denard Span, Brian Buscher, Brendan Harris, Alexi Casilla, and Matt Tolbert all enjoyed their first full season (almost) with the Twins. Throw in veterans Jason Kubel, Joe Mauer, and Justin Morneau and we can fill a lineup card quite effectively, with a DH and one bench player, not one of them over the age of 28. We scored the third most runs in the league (Also the third highest total in club history) and we had the number three batting average. This could be a very good team for many years to come. Do we need to get anything during the offseason? What about defense? Will we trade Michael Cuddyer?

Bert: First of all, let's hope the Twins do not trade Michael Cuddyer. He is a huge part of the Twins going into next season. It was too bad he was hurt most of the season but if he is healthy in 2009 he can create some of the additional power the team needs in the lineup. I wouldn't be surprised if the Twins ask Michael to play third base next season. Denard Span showed that he can be the leadoff hitter for the Twins going into next season and he played a great right field. On paper the Twins have a good lineup, as you mentioned. I do know that Gardy wants to tighten up the defense. With the young players the Twins had this season came too many errors. They had the third most errors in the American League, and that's not Twins baseball. I'm sure Gardy will be addressing this issue with his players in spring training.

Frank: Keeping with the same theme, the pitching staff is very young. Our five starters who finished off the year by completing the final two months combined for a 52-34 record and a 3.96 ERA in 2008. That is a winning percentage over .600, and the oldest of the five, Scott Baker, just turned 27. After a full year (more or less) in a Major League starting rotation, these men should only get better, right? And now arm fatigue will not be an issue anymore -- as it may have been this year – since all of them threw at least 170 innings between the Minors and the Majors in 2008.
What do you think of the progress they made over the season? Could they improve next year? With all the great players, young and not so young, it should be an exciting 2009, huh? You and I should be ready for it. Now go and get some innings under your belt this winter and come back refreshed.

Bert: Good pitching and good defense usually call for a winning season. These are things the Twins will go into spring training hoping to have in 2009. As you know, I do not believe in pitch counts, and with the young pitchers on this staff getting a full season under their belts, now maybe all five of them can reach 200 innings. I don't think that is asking too much. It is not me that has to get refreshed, it is the five young starters that need to come into spring training in the best shape of their lives and be ready to take to ball into the seventh or eighth inning time after time. You do this by making sure that your legs are in shape for spring. I sure hope all the starters know what they are capable of doing and that's pitching deeper into games. It all starts with your leg strength! Distance running is the best way to built up endurance for a long season, and they need to do a lot of stretching. Light weights are also good for arm strength. The Twins’ strength and conditioning coach, Perry Castellano, is very good at setting up winter programs for each individual player, but it's the player who has to get to know his own body and what he expects out of his body to be successful. With the starters going longer into games, the bullpen will hopefully not be used as much as they had to be used this last season. For the Twins to have another successful season the starters need to protect their relievers by going deeper into games.

Frank: We have had some fun this year in the blog, talking about random stuff each week like your favorite restaurants on the road, holidays during your childhood, and even about rock and roll music. But my favorite has to be your story about dropping that loudmouth in the dunk tank repeatedly. We need one final good story to close out the year and make people want more, which might come in about six months. Since you are already at home in Florida, do you have any good stories about golf?
Did your dad ever take you golfing? I know he meant a lot to you, and his eventual defeat after a battle with Parkinson's Disease is one of the main reasons for this weekly endeavor to raise money. Former Twin Kent Hrbek lost his father to ALS -- the disease that killed baseball legend Lou Gehrig -- while I have a form of Ataxia, the disease that killed Twins legend Bob Allison. Because of our closeness to baseball (you can read about my life in baseball on the right side of this page) and your father’s closeness to you, we have set out to raise money for the Minnesota Medical Foundation, which funds research on all three diseases. So your father is a big part of this blog. Speaking of golf, what was his handicap (besides you)? What is yours (besides having grown up in Southern California)?

Bert: I want to personally thank everyone who had a chance to read this blog over the last season. The Twins had a successful year but did not make the post season. I hope all the Twins players watch the post season and think about the things they can do better in 2009 to make sure they get there as a team. I used to watch all the post season games and I would see if I could figure out anything that I could do to help my team get there the next season. Let's hope the Twins players are watching for the 2009 season.I also want to personally thank those who found it in their hearts to make a donation to Parkinson's, ALS, and Ataxia after reading the blog. Every dollar you donate hopefully will help find a cure for these deadly diseases. My father passed away from Parkinson's on October 15, 2004.
Golf was one thing that we enjoyed doing together. I introduced golf to my dad many years ago. During the winter months we had a 6:19am tee time every Sunday morning at a course in Garden Grove, California. Many mornings it would not be dawn yet at 6:19, so we would tee-off in the dark. Hole #1 was a par four that was straight away, probably about 360 yards. There were always four of us who played, so when one of us were hitting the ball into the dark, the other three would stand behind to try and track the flight of the ball. After we all hit then we would start walking toward the green with one player walking down the left side of the fairway, another walking down the right side of the fairway, and the other two walking slowly down the middle. Sooner than later someone would find a ball and yell out what kind of ball it was so the right person could hit it again in the dark toward the green. Once we all hit our second shot then the march would continue to the green. After we all putted our balls into the hole, I would ask each golfer what they had for a score. Every Sunday my dad always said he had a 5! Even if it took him eight shots to sink his putt he still said, “Give me a 5!” That Christmas I had about 20 scorecards made up from that course we played and on the scorecard I had my dad's name, Joe, engraved on the card and on the first hole I had them engrave a 5! He laughed so hard when he opened that gift and I can still see his smile today. Golf is a great game because it brings friends and family together for a fun day filled with memories. My dad's handicap was probably about an 18, where mine is currently a 5! I guess I got that from my dad!!!!!Have a great winter and thank you all again for reading this blog each week. You are all “Hereby Circled!”

Frank: Well, most baseball is played in the land of golf for the next few months. The Arizona Fall League started this week for the Twins’ top prospects -- and there is an ongoing Florida Instructional League and winter ball in the warm states and countries further south -- so we will see if the team can improve the bullpen and the left side of the infield without making any deals! But for now we are done, and hopefully we’ll see you all back here next season. Thanks for reading and for donating! For Bert Blyleven, this is Frank Genalo wishing you a quiet, peaceful, and blessed winter.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Thoughts from Bert...

The 2008 Minnesota Twins season ended after they lost 1-0 to the Chicago White Sox in game #163 of the season. The White Sox are the winners of the Central Division and now continue on into the post season.

The Twins had a great year with the young talent they had and it should be an interesting 2009 season. I do have one complaint about the way the season ended. I know, through the Commission's Office of Major League Baseball, that a coin flip was used in determining who would have home field advantage if an extra game was needed like one one that the Twins and White Sox played.

Why was the game played in Chicago? The Twins won the season series 10-8 and they should have had home field advantage for this game! It's not right when a flip of a coin determines the outcome of a long season. So winning the season series doesn't really mean anything, right? That's bull! The Twins were 8-1 vs. the White Sox in the Metrodome and 2-7 in U.S. Cellular Field.I guess I am complaining over spilled milk but this was not right!Anyway, the Twins did have a great year as a ball club. The last week of the season had to be very exciting for all the players, coaches and manager. This last week turned out to be like post season because of the crowds that attended these games. Especially the last 6 games in the Dome.

The Twins fans again were the 10th player on the field and I personally want to thank the fans for their support throughout the season. Fox Sports North TV rating were higher then normal because of the players on the field and the way they played throughout the season.I hope everyone has a great winter and I am already waiting to see the games in spring training and the excitement that comes with a new season. The young pitching staff and younger everyday players should feel proud of the nice job they did throughout the 2008 season.

Also congratulations to Joe Mauer in winning his second American League batting title and let's hope Justin Morneau and/or Joe Mauer bring the MVP Award back to the Twin Cities.

God Bless you and and be safe,
Bert Blyleven

Frank's Story

The Day Perfection Died (Frank's Story)

The headline of USA Today's sports page on Thursday, September 15, 1994 read “’YER OUT!” Countless other newspapers proclaimed “Going, Going, Gone.” But the pain felt by baseball fans when the season-ending, World Series-cancelling announcement was made was not alleviated by such cute little phrases. Throughout the strike, the propaganda had flown from the lips of owners and players alike, but we fans expected a return to normalcy. But for a large majority of fans, the tragic passing of baseball in 1994 was a new occurrence. In fact, much was made of the fact that all the wars and even a major earthquake weren’t enough to stop the World Series. But for at least one fan, me, the loss of the national pastime was a repeat offense. Theft of the game by modern greed was a parallel to the crime perpetrated against me many years ago.
Back in my pre-teen years, I experienced one of the more intense growing pains imaginable—baseball was stolen from me. For when I was nine years old, I was diagnosed with Friedreich’s Ataxia, a rare, degenerative, neuromuscular disease that I inherited recessively from my parents. Although the disease made it progressively harder for me to walk, run, stand still at the plate (anything involving muscles and their coordination), I continued to play the game I loved. I was a mere shadow of the player I had once been, but I guess my natural mental capacity for the game kept me in my little league team’s starting lineup. I was the Lou Gehrig of Ames, Iowa pre--teens, playing first base as well as I could, giving it my all, despite dwindling physical abilities. Eventually, it was taken from me altogether. At the time, I didn't realize what a devastating loss it was. Ten difficult years later, my heart had grown fonder. When I read the strike announcement in 1994, memories of this loss poured out of me for the better part of an hour. Three years since have not dried my line of tears, which trail off into the remembrance of my favorite game.

Top of the first . . .
Baseball was, before the diagnosis, the one incredible passion in my life. I would have dropped anything (and often did, much to my mother's displeasure. Our neighbor even reported to her of me in my diaper playing ball in the backyard.) just to play baseball, softball, wiffle ball, or even a game of catch with my big brother. We played hotbox with our friends; we played simulated games imitating our favorite major leaguers, trying to hit, throw, and catch just like them. We played ball wherever we were. Our motto was "take me out to any ballgame." I could not have foreseen a life without the joy of playing baseball.

Top of the second . . .
There was a reason for this undeniable passion; I was really, really good. I remember that back during my tee-ball days, my best friend Fred and I were the two best players that Irv Rosheim had seen during his 40 years of coaching rec ball in Ames, or so he told our parents. He would bellow from beneath his red Welch Junior High School cap whenever Fred or I stepped to the plate on the rec league practice field, "All the Way to Lincoln Way," a spirited plea to be sure, as Frank Thomas probably could not hit Lincoln Way from there. In the field, Fred and I dominated the game from whichever two infield positions we chose on a given day. Basically we chose between left side and right side, because the other five-year-olds couldn't hit the ball hard enough to find a hole or clear the infield. We were a two-man blanket on defense, and a very short murderer's row on offense. One of my favorite stories of our juvenile diarchy is a tee-ball game my father told me about. With the bases loaded and nobody out, a kid popped one up. I was playing fielding pitcher, and raced in to catch the ball. I looked at the runner on third, and he had not set foot off the base, as base running was not top-notch in tee-ball. For the same reason, the runners on first and second kept running forward, even after the catch. Fred realized this at the same time I did and took off running toward second base from his position at first. Halfway there I hit him on the dead run with a bullet throw, as we were always in sync. Fred tagged the guy running to second and out-ran the kid who was now retreating to second at his third-base coach's plea. While Fred and I trotted off the field, an audible gasp rose from the crowd, followed by the murmur of husbands explaining to wives how many outs had been made. I think many women and children heard the term "triple play" for the first time that day. As my dad says now, I was slightly more athletic and a better baseball player than Fred, but he was taller and always preferred basketball, which is why he currently plays in the NBA.

Now entering the third inning . . .
One day during the coach-pitch league, the next level after tee-ball, I was playing fielding pitcher still. A kid obviously was lucky just to make contact with a pitch once. His mother jumped up and down in the stands, screaming "Run!" Her excitement was not deterred by the ball's dribbling three feet in front of home plate. I sprang off the mound as the kid took off for first and raced in, grabbed the ball and fired to first in one motion, getting the out by a full step. As my parents beamed quietly, certain that I possessed the strongest eight-year-old arm in the world, the kid's mom surveyed the situation and allowed, "HolyCow!"

Top of the fourth . . .
But as I grew older, my physical abilities deteriorated gradually, even before the disease was diagnosed. After a while in the coach-pitch league, I had slowed enough to move to third base or the outfield usually. But even as my speed left me, I was still good. I could hit, catch, and throw better than most of my peers. One year, after the diagnosis, I made the all-star team in a close vote. During the all-star game, I hit a line drive up the middle that the fielding pitcher somehow dodged. In the car afterward, my dad, apparently knowing my need for reassurance, said, "Frank, you had the hardest hit of the game." I wasn't so sure, so I said, "Really, you don't think Eric Holm's hit was harder?" He paused and answered, "No way. Yours was up the middle. Perfect timing." It was perfect in a grander sense than he could have realized, as that was my final all-star game. I was 10 years old.

Moving right along, we head to the fifth . . .
As my disease ate away at my nerves and my muscle control, I slowed down enough that the coaches moved me to first base--just like all the other greats nearing the end of their careers. Just like my dad, who bestowed his first baseman's glove on me, because he still had a couple years of center field left in his legs. I think he knew I would be done breaking in the glove before he needed it. And break it in I did. For my final couple years of little league, that glove scooped balls out of the dirt more frequently than ever had been seen in Ames little league action. That glove allowed me to be the best first baseman in the league, at least the best at catching, but only partially alleviated the internal havoc my illness was wreaking. My balance continually worsened, making it difficult to stand still in the field and especially in the batter's box. My ability at the plate had been decimated, and my lack of speed only compounded my offensive woes. Try as I did, my heart and baseball intelligence were no match for my degenerating cells.

Top of the sixth . . .
On the eve of a playoff game during my final year in baseball a juvenile prank left a pine needle lodged in my skull. The morning of the game, a friend took me to the hospital in my team's uniform, as my parents were out of town. A doctor opened my scalp and left the wound open, in hopes that the intruder would work its way out. I rushed to the game and played my heart out, overcoming dizziness to do my normal bang-up job at first base. My older brother Larry, the brother whom I had played with for countless hours of my youth, umpired first base in that game. I remember that one of my famous scoops came up into the heel of my glove. I squeezed it tightly, showed it to Larry, and he signaled the out. The first base coach jumped up and down and yelled at him, but I think it was the right call. If not right, at least appropriate. My usual ineffectiveness at the plate, however, was exaggerated by dizzy spells. After exacting all my effort and courage to stand in the box, I would make an out. Upon returning to the dugout, I'd remove my helmet and ignore the specks of blood that I saw. Despite my physical problems, we won that hot summer afternoon. As it should be--and as it always was--my physical woes took a back seat to the game. The important thing is that we won that day to move on in the tournament, and I was no small part.

Now entering the seventh . . .
Saturday, July 8, 1984--no newspaper headlines proclaiming loss, no announcement. Just the next game of the playoffs. I walked clumsily to the plate in the last inning with two outs and my team down by a couple of runs. After fouling back strike two to push the count to 2-2, I knew I needed to protect the plate on anything close. At the same time, I understood that my team needed a base runner to prolong the inning, so a walk would do. Ironically, my old pal Fred, the league's star player, watched from his position at shortstop, probably unaware of the profundity of the moment. The pitch came, and it looked good, so I started to swing. I don't know why, but the ball kept rising, and I thought it was high. I checked my swing, or so I thought, but the umpire yelled, "Strike three!," and the game was over. I wanted to ask the ump if he called the swing or the strike, but my words drowned in my rapidly forming tears. As Fred's teammates mobbed him, I cried for five minutes, mourning both the loss and the fact that I had let my teammates down. After that day, I never played little league again, but I would not let myself miss it. I shut off any nostalgia. I still liked baseball, but my passion had died. Ten years later, the strike announcement shook away the numbness, and the true mourning began.

We go to the eighth . . .
As my disease progressed to eventually confine me to a wheelchair, it drove me to pursue scholastic endeavors. My senior year in high school, I traded off headlines in the local paper with Fred, my former athletic equal who had taken off athletically. He owned the sports page, while frequent tales of my academic career somehow didn't bore people. This arrangement helped plunge any pain that could have stopped me up. My favorite teacher in high school, who teaches History and English, during our Western Civilization class's art section mentioned that the best test he could think of to judge the greatness of a painting was whether he would cut off one of his arms in return for an original copy of the painting. He has a handful of ampu-worthy paintings; thinking about his test makes you appreciate the unbelievable passion he has for art. I've thought about this test in relation to baseball, and I would gladly give an arm to be restored to full strength and allowed to play in the major leagues for a day--one day. In a heartbeat. That is the depth of my frustration.

We head into the final inning . . .
In Hollywood's rendition of my life story, "Field of Dreams," Kevin Costner plays Ray Kinsella, a man whose father played professional baseball but never attained his ultimate goal of playing in the major leagues. His father died before Kinsella ever developed a real relationship with him, and only a love of baseball binds the two. Kinsella plows over his cornfield in order to sow some fantastic seeds. He builds a baseball field surrounded by his corn, which he thinks will bring his hero--the legendary Joe Jackson, wrongly banned for life from baseball--off the black(sox)list to once more play the game he loved. Kinsella reaps what he sows, as Jackson shows up and brings many of his contemporaries to play. Kinsella also brings others whose dreams of playing in the major leagues had been discarded for one reason or another. In a stunning portrayal of dreams being taken off the back burner, they all gather at Kinsella's heavenly cornfield to play together. This scene is even more amazing for any boy who ever had the same dreams, the same disintegrated aspirations and loves as the movie's characters. Ultimately, Kinsella's final dream of making friends with his father also comes true, as the elder Kinsella shows up and plays catch with Ray. This game of catch represents the ultimate dream come true for many boys; seeing their fathers as young, athletic men; father and son throwing their hearts back and forth, squeezing them tightly with both hands to make every catch, for fear of letting their mutual love slip out of the palm of the glove and vanish forever.

As they say, game over . . .
In a sense, I guess, that's what happened to me on that dark and dreary summer day back in 1984. A piece of me, part of my heart, slipped out of the catcher's mitt and disappeared as the other team celebrated its victory. I don't know for sure whether the umpire called the pitch a strike or said I didn't check my swing in time. But I suppose it doesn't matter. The fact is that I struck out, ending my once-promising baseball career. My final swing was not really a swing. And now, after thirteen years, I would give anything for a chance to take another cut. I wish I could get another chance to play the game I love, but I realize it will only happen in my head, my field of dreams. I guess with the current state of the baseball world, dreaming is the only way to keep the game as flawless as it really is. That calls to mind my favorite line from "Field of Dreams." One of the men who had never fulfilled his goal of making the majors says to Kinsella upon getting his first glimpse of the scrimmaging ghosts, "This is unbelievable." Ray, carefully studying the activity on the field, sums up the scene, "No, it's more than that--it's perfect." In the words of the great Dodger broadcaster Vin Scully, "And how."

» Frank Genalo was born and raised in Ames, Iowa, went to Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California (http://www.hmc.edu). He then went to graduate school at the University of Arizona. He now resides in St Paul, Minnesota.

Bert's Buddy Blog

Friday, October 10, 2008

That's a Wrap....Until Next Time

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Thoughts from Bert...

Bert and his Buddy (Frank)

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