I got to see the players. I do have an opportunity to do a couple of college games again. Todd knew the shooter must be reloading. Blyleven was with the Angels late in his career, and during a series against the Dodgers, Los Angeles manager Tommy Lasorda was doing a pregame television interview. The night of the shooting, Bert had received a call from his daughter, Kim, alerting him to what was happening at the concert Todd and Cathie were attending. Blyleven, still rather wide-eyed, said to Roof, Ive hit guys before, but Ive never tried to hit one.. The dream inspired him to design a large tattoo for his right arm. Beyond the actions of law enforcement and medical personnel were the ordinary concert attendees who cared for the wounded, led others to safety, performed CPR, made tourniquets, and drove victims to the hospital. Today he has 287 baseballs on display in his Fort Myers, Fla., home. Click on the image to see them & other memorabilia signed by Bert. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, Before and after photos from space show storms effect on California reservoirs, Dramatic before and after photos from space show epic snow blanketing SoCal mountains, The chance of a lifetime: Five friends ski the tallest mountain in Los Angeles, Shocking, impossible gas bills push restaurants to the brink of closures, Ducks three-game win streak snapped in overtime loss to Capitals, High school basketball: Southern California and Northern California Regional results and updated pairings, Sherman Oaks Notre Dame overcomes deficit to win Mission League opener, Still in UCLAs corner, Ben Howland stressed importance of getting No. I always pictured somebody at home who just went to work from 8 to 5, had dinner with their family, maybe put their feet up on their recliner and turned on the Twins game. He was traded that offseason. He works as the analyst for Twins TV broadcasts and, in July, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Dancing. And the angle is so much better with his hard breaking ball and fastball, and its easier to pitch right-handers inside from that angle. And then at the end of May, Im doing the Big East championship game. He went on to say he was upset Tanner wasnt letting him finish games. And the message mattered most when Todd needed it most -- on the night of the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. Blyleven finds the poetry of this year pleasing, that 2011 and Blyleven makes a nice campaign slogan, and so now he jokes that perhaps there was some sort of cosmic fate that made the wait so long. The next day he put itching powder in Blylevens shorts. Joe was a tradesman, a self-made man whose own booming voice would draw the ire of umpires when hed bark about ball and strike calls while Bert was pitching. What is a triple? Please, she prayed. If he saw Bob Gibson or Jim Palmer or Nolan Ryan doing something on the field before a start, he would try the same. Receive small business resources and advice about entrepreneurial info, home based business, business franchises and startup opportunities for entrepreneurs. He later expressed discontent with his broadcasting contract, and he almost lost his on-air job in 2006 when, not realizing the show was live, twice used an expletive in telling producers hed made mistakes and needed to restart the taping. Browse Locations Hopkins, MN(1) Inver Grove Heights, MN(1) Lakeville, MN(2) Lonsdale, MN(1) Mankato, MN(1) Minneapolis, MN(2) Rosemount, MN(1) Saint Paul, MN(4) Sleepy Eye, MN(1) And then the next year, Tommy John and I ended up splitting the schedule 50-50 doing the games. The shots were now closer than ever, clanging off a metal structure just to Todds right. Fox gave me a telestrator and they wanted me to use it. Todd interpreted that dream to mean he is not alone, that some higher power protected him and allowed him to get back safely to his wife and kids. And in the back, theres a beautiful lake. Click a location below to find Gayle more easily. Those are the words Aldean was singing as Todd, dressed in a white checkered shirt and a cowboy hat and boots that were a gift from Cathie, spun and dipped his niece, Brianna, near the back of the venue. But his affinity for his local Orange County team couldnt surpass his love of two Dodgers pitchers Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. Gayle and I are safe and we are praying for all the people that lost their lives and others that lost everything . And mentally, Todd felt ill-equipped to handle the pressures of his evolving life. I started playing baseball when I was about nine years old. Inspired by the message in that chapel service in the dugout all those years earlier, Todd was -- and is -- the type of person who pulls over to the side of the road to assist a stranded motorist. Then he hit him with that question posed with typical Dutch directness. . The Hall of Famer listened intently as his son detailed his experience. On nights when Koufax or Drysdale was pitching, Blyleven would listen to Scully on the radio and keep track of just one statistic. I think we went from Kansas City to Detroit, somebody brought a sign that said, We drove 446 miles from Detroit Lakes to see the Twins. And so I circled the sign and then it just kind of blossomed from there. Blyleven and his wife, Gayle, reside in Fort Myers, and have six children and eight grandchildren. Not just by me but by all of those people.". When Todd and Cathie go out to eat, they find a table where they can position their backs against a wall and where they have a view of the entire restaurant. ! Sign Up Log In Messenger Facebook Lite Watch Places Games In 2010, Garden Grove had a population of more than 170,000, but back then, Bert recalled, the city was mostly orange groves a warm, sunny, safe place where the little boy from the Netherlands learned to play baseball. The incongruity in Todds life was that, while he struggled to meet the needs of his bride, he was always eager to help strangers. Bert remembers the time he was still with the Pirates and pitched the first game of a doubleheader in Philadelphia. As he ran, though, Todd spotted a man carrying a younger woman, probably 18 or 19 years old. And I said, Sure. So I did about four or five college games, and then (Twins president) Dave St. Peter asked me if I would do some of the Twins games in Anaheim and also in Oakland, which I did. And there was a Twins fan sitting in the upper deck, and they kept saying, Try to use the telestrator, try to use it somehow. But to me, if theres a fly ball in left center and the centerfielder and leftfielder converged, you cant really draw a line like John Madden did in football with the Xs and Os and all that stuff. Now a special assistant with the Twins with a role as team ambassador, Blyleven is retired from the broadcast booth and living with his wife, Gayle, in Fort Myers, home of the Twins spring training facility. Bert Blyleven Official Site We have a limited number of these autographed bats. The Dutchman didnt stay long in his native country. Bert and his wife, Gayle, had traveled to Dallas soon after the shooting to spend time with Todd, Cathie and the kids. As a teenager, she had to routinely deal with the mortification of her father passing gas in public and announcing loudly, Kim, I cant believe you just did that!, Oh my god, Cohn responded when asked about this particular element of her fathers personality. I think hes given me credit for that over the years, but its up to him to make that decision. He turned the ring inward and went back to work. She was just 33 years old. The 7-year-old, red-haired, freckled son of Bert Blyleven served as the clubs bat boy and was affectionately known as Tomato Face. He had spent that season embedded with the Bucs, swinging on Dave Parkers muscular arms and helping Willie Stargell hand out gold stars after victories to the players of the game. In his actions as much -- or more -- than his words, Joe taught Bert about Dutch perseverance. I told Dave, If you want me to go from suite to suite and make sure that the beer is not sour in those suites, Ill be more than happy to do that throughout the game.. He then took reliever Willie Frasers clothes from Frasers locker and put them in his. But his proudest moment came a few years earlier with the Angels, when his contributions on the scouting side earned him a 2002 World Series ring. 28 hanging above left field at Target Field, the bad memories have faded away. The Astros visited his home and offered him a signing bonus commensurate with a second-round pick in advance of the 1990 Draft. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2011. Getentrepreneurial.com: Resources for Small Business Entrepreneurs in 2022. Its softer now. His reason, he told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, was the non-support and lack of confidence from manager Chuck Tanner. 1 found for Gayle Blyleven in 1 cities. That affirmation from the man he admired meant a great deal to Todd. Nearly four years later, Todd is still processing what happened in Vegas and its effects on his life. And then a couple of years ago, I sat with (Twins president) Dave St. Peter and they just basically said they were going to move in another direction. Because of the virus and everything that was going on, I only went to one Twins game (this spring). He has four children and two step-children. Things were icy enough between Todd and Cathie that they didnt even sit next to each other on their American Airlines flight from Dallas. I loved writing down the strikeouts, he said. She couldnt make him understand that, for her, it wasnt that easy. Instead, she stuck to the local roads. At night, theyd trek over to the three-day music festival, set on an acre-long patch of asphalt in the shadows of the Mandalay Bay Resort. Blyleven remembers it a little differently, going back to the day then-Twins pitching coach Marv Grissom took him out to the mound with nothing but a ball, a glove, a folding chair and the goal of getting Blyleven to open up his delivery and use the lower half of his body. He simply wanted to talk about his contract. He ranks fifth all-time among pitchers in strikeouts, 14th in innings pitched, and 27th in wins. Cathie checked her phone and found it flooded with text messages and Facebook messages from Bert and other family members checking to see if she and Todd were safe. From that point on, Molitor was not only terribly concerned about getting a hit off Blyleven, he also was terrified of being hit by the right-hander so much so that the owner of 3,319 career hits was convinced Blyleven had hit him more than once in their 80 meetings over the years. Blyleven started his Little League career as a catcher until a coach realized he was throwing back to the mound harder than the pitcher was throwing to him. 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When the whole [Blyleven] family gets together, they have tons of fun, says Cathie, but there's just not as much emotion as I was used to in my family.. But this day was hot as hell, the street especially steep. When Bert called today, Mead said, he wanted us to express his sincere thanks to members of the media and others for their concern and messages. No replacement had been named, but Sunday starter Chuck Finley will not be moved up in the rotation. But with that not-so-chance second chance, they got it right. He instead wound up trying several jobs -- construction worker, carpet cleaner, water deliveryman, Boot Barn salesman. Bert and his wife, Gayle, reside in Fort Myers, FL and have six children and eight grandchildren. Finally, this year, 79.7 percent of voters put him on their ballots. At this timely, he is the color commentator for the Minnesota Twins on Fox Sports North. All that stuff. They went to the community healing garden arranged in downtown Las Vegas in the aftermath. And getting them out meant going back in. It really does show me that there are some good people in the world.. It was a classic case of a man and woman dancing not with each other but around each other. The Las Vegas shooting had one villain, 58 victims fatally wounded that night, two more who eventually died from complications related to the shooting in the ensuing years, 411 people injured by the bullets, another 456 injured in the ensuing panic, and some untold number of heroes. That first night at home, Todd had a dream about the Vegas shooting so vivid that it caused him to scream aloud and grab Cathies leg, waking both of them. We have to be more caring and empathetic to their feelings, what they went through. My shoulder just never responded to the surgery I had, and it was kind of time to retire. Blyleven will be around as a special instructor at times in Fort Myers, the Florida home to the Twins, and also to Blyleven and his wife, Gayle, Quite a half-century journey, from the wide-eyed 18 . When the whole [Blyleven] family gets together, they have tons of fun, but there's just not as much emotion as I was used to in my family. Bert lived in Zeist. I signed a five-year deal with three years option with Dave St. Peter and the Twins to be a special assistant. So one night in March 2000, Todd was dancing at the Crazy Horse Steak House & Saloon in Irvine, Calif. Cathie was there, too, all part of her plot to run into Todd on purpose. His signature signing was a Long Beach State shortstop named Troy Tulowitzki, who was taken by Colorado with the seventh pick in the 2005 Draft. Circle Me, Bert? They danced in sync. I want the weekend to be for her, he said. Todd was living proof of the good that can come from people pulling together. It was like I wanted to push the fast-forward button, he says. Todd looked his father, his idol, in the eye. I was to be in spring training for three weeks, but because of the virus and everything, I was not able to do that this spring. Bob Sansevere can be heard Tuesdays and Thursdays on the KQRS Morning Show, and he does a daily podcast called The BS Show, which can be listened to live on the Tom Barnard digital radio network or downloaded via iTunes, Stitcher or thebsshow.net. A madman with an arsenal of 14 AR-15 and eight AR-10-type rifles, a bolt-action rifle and a revolver had opened fire on the concert crowd from his suite on the 32nd floor. It was not unusual for Joe to be ejected from the stands. With a Stetson hat atop his head and Durango boots on his feet, he could swing to the music of Garth Brooks and Toby Keith with the kind of confidence he once took to the high school mound. It goes by so quick, so enjoy every moment. Theres no stopping here, the dad replied. 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