See Photos. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. SSG STEVE BLASS passed away on March 11, 2013 at the age of 27 in ESTHERVILLE, Iowa. Karen's Quotes "Be yourself; everyone else is already taken." The former Karen Lamb, who will celebrate her 49th anniversary with Mr. Blass today [Friday], came from an athletic family. He was in great physical shape, as usual, and his arm felt fine; in his entire pitching career, Blass never experienced a sore arm. The best season-long earned-run average of the modern baseball era was Bob Gibsons 1.12 mark, set in 1968. He picked us all up. 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. I dont know the answer, Bill Virdon told me in the Yankee clubhouse. Intelligent, knows how to win. ? he said. If a player made a mistake, Steve knew how to say something about it that would let the guy know it was O.K. By early August, Blasss record with Charleston was two and nine, and 9.74. I should know., The game rushed along, as games always do when Gibson is pitching. Select this result to view Karen Louise Blass's phone number, address, and more. He makes you play his game.. I promised he would have no control problems. of less than 3.00 certifies true quality in almost exactly the same fashion as an over-.300 batting average for hitters. Blass was never thought of as one of the great pitchers of his time, but in the late sixties and early seventies he was probably the most consistent starter on the Pirate staff; it was, in fact, a staff without stars. His pitching motion, so jittery and unclassical, at last let him down for good. Earlier in the same summer, he also experimented briefly with transcendental meditation. He could do Roberto Clementenot just the way he moved but the way he talked. Maybe I should have come right out and said he seemed to have lost his will to fight, but its hard to shock somebody, to keep bearing in on him. Who Is Steve Blass's Wife? Karen L Blass Phone Number (412) 835-2786 Landline phone by Verizon Pennsylvania, Inc, four persons associated Ads by BeenVerified Background Report Click here to view details Persons Associated with Address 1756 Quigg Dr Stephen R Blass Details (412) 835-2786 Kelly M Fabian Details Age ~41 (412) 854-1986 Todd E Fabian Details Age ~42 Frank Tepedino singled, driving in two runs, and Steve Blass was finally relieved. Then, in late February, 1974, Blass reported to Bradenton with the other Pirate pitchers and catchers. He was seriously affected by the death of Roberto Clemente. (He was wilder than hell, Blass said. They have also lived in Pittsburgh, PA. Karen is related to Meghan Chandler Blass and Chris F Blass as well as 2 additional people. As with the other aspects of the game, statistics define his work andday by day, inning by inningwhether he is getting it done. 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. Ad Choices. 3.85. I was a total Indians fan, completely buggy. Blass tries to pass off the experience lightly (he is apparently incapable of self-pity) but one can guess what must have been required of him to summon up even a scrap of the kind of hope and aggressive self-confidence that are prerequisites, at every level, of a successful athletic performance. Tony Perez was the next batter. Thats just to set up another slider outside., Were ahead one and two nowright? Blass said. There is no doubt but that the sudden taking away of their most famous and vivid star affected all the Pirates, including Steve Blass. See Photos. He was the son of a plumber. Later, I saw him in front of his locker with his arm around his father, Bob Blass, a plumber from Falls Village, Connecticut, who had once been a semi-pro pitcher; the two Blasses, I saw, were wearing identical delighted, non-stop smiles. Prior to this season, Steve announced it . Lots of other stuff. Karen Blass. Blass did not argue about the decision; in fact, as a veteran with more than eight years service in the majors, he had to agree to the demotion before the parent club could send him down. I talked to everybody, but mostly to Joe Brown and Danny and my wife. I have a varied background spanning social impact assessment, international and community development, environmental science and environmental law and policy which has provided me with a range of experience working on development projects both within Australia and internationally including countries such as Bangladesh, Colombia, Vietnam and China. "All three were good, and Art was the best of us all," said Mr. Blass, "but he blew his arm out after he signed." He struck out some players with his fastball. That figure and his record of eighty-four walks in eighty-nine innings pitched were the worst in the National League. They can bury you before you even get started. Well, I dont go along with that. Im not certain that I saw Blass work in the regular season of 1972, but I did see him pitch the opening game of the National League playoffs that fall against the Cincinnati Reds, in Pittsburgh. Ive had my own ideas about Steves pitching, about the mystery, but they havent made much difference. I knew I wasnt capable of going in there, he said. The pitcher is knocked about, often by an inferior rival team, and leaves within a few innings; asked about it later, he shrugs and says, I didnt have it today. He seems unsurprised. 5 (3). Blasss story is different. Other elite athletes have experienced the same loss of ability. The frustrating, bewildering part of it all was that while working alone with a catcher Blass continued to throw as well as he ever had; his fastball was alive, and his slider and curve shaved the corners of the plate. He had mechanical difficulties, with some underlying mental cause. He is a member of famous Actor with the age 80 years old group. But Seavers problems were only relatively serious (his record for 1974 was 1111), and were at least partly explicable (he had a sore hip), and he has now returned to form. Blass did hit a number of players in his career, of course, but he never caused anyone to go on the disabled list or, for that matter, to miss even one days work. He was wearing slacks and a T-shirt and an old sweater (he had a golfing date later that day), and he looked very young. I was so worried that I couldnt get back to sleepand all this was just over going out and throwing to pitchers. He pitched well in spring training in Bradenton, which was unusual, for he has always been a very slow starter. Exploring a pitching career that began with a complete-game victory over Hall of Famer Don Drysdale in 1964 and ended when he could no longer control his pitches, this book details the life of Pittsburgh Pirates great, Steve Blass. Thats one of the concepts of Dr. Harrisons program, you knowvisualization. He needed continuous game experience if he was ever to break out of it, and he knew he no longer belonged with a big-league club. $2.75 shipping. I can still recall how Blass looked that afternoonhis characteristic, feet-together stance at the outermost, first-base edge of the pitching rubber, and then the pitch, delivered with a swastika-like scattering of arms and legs and a final lurch to the leftand I also remember how I kept thinking that at any moment the sluggers of the Big Red Machine would stop overstriding and overswinging against such unintimidating deliveries and drive Blass to cover. Some of them mentioned Rex Barney, a Dodger fastball pitcher of the nineteen-forties, who quit baseball while still a young man because of his uncontrollable wildness; Barney, however, had only one good year, and it is fair to say that he never did have his great stuff under control. Last year, Ferguson Jenkins, of the Texas Rangers, gave up only forty-five walks in three hundred and twenty-eight innings pitched, or an average of 1.19 per game. I dont think anybody will ever understand his decline. Blass had started the game in Toledo, and he was so disgusted with his performance that he got back on the bus without having showered or taken off his uniform. Stephen Robert Blass (born April 18, 1942) is an American former professional baseball player and television sports color commentator. The gamethe White Sox vs. the Orioleswas a close, 31 affair, in which the winning White Sox pitcher, John McKenzie, struck out seventeen batters, in six innings. No wonder its so hard to play this game right., In the Pirates seventh, Bill Robinson pinch-hit for Ed Kirkpatrick, and Blass said, Well, that still makes me wince a little. It was a moment or two before I realized that Robinson was wearing Blasss old uniform number. The pitcher goes into a slump. Blass made the trip mostly because he had promised Maury Wills, who is now a baserunning consultant to several teams, that he would not quit the game until he had seen Mr. Ellen. Earlier in the week of my visit, he had accepted a promising job with Jostens, Inc., a large jewelry concern that makes, among other things, World Series rings and high-school graduation rings, and he would go to work for them shortly as a travelling representative in the Pittsburgh area. I wanted to feel I had at least got things turned around and facing in the right direction.. All this was said with an air of summing up, of finality, but at other times that evening I noticed that it seemed difficult for Blass to talk about his baseball career as a thing of the past; now and then he slipped into the present tenseas if it were still going on. In his first start, against the Dodgers in Los Angeles, he pitched against Don Drysdale and won, 42. [1] Blass, once his difficulties commenced, was helpless. Bio gossipy. 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. There are central areas you cant infringe on with him. 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. .. Like. More than four decades after the ex-wife of Righteous Brothers singer Bill Medley was raped and killed, officials announced they used DNA to identify a suspect in the slaying: a man who was killed . Age 35 / Jul 1986. And I felt that even this might not be enough for him. Los Angeles. or. Karen Blass, 79. His statistics for the game, including an E.R.A. He was a different man out there., Blass walked eight men in the fourth inning and gave up eight runs. Steve Nobel. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. He had another pretty good outing against the Cardinals, for no decision, and then started against the Mets, in New York, on September 21st, but got only two men out, giving up four instant runs on a walk and four hits. He had become an extra wheel. I remember that after the 71 Series he said, I didnt think I was as good as this. He seemed truly surprised at what hed done. Blass repeated mantras and meditated twice a day for about two months; he found that it relaxed him, but it did not seem to have much application to his pitching. He cracked a thumb while fielding a grounder in 1966. Perfect. He told me he did not enjoy brushing back hitters but had done so when it was obviously called for. Suite 650. Still he cannot win. Blass flew out to California to see Dr. Bill Harrison once more, and also to visit a hypnotist, Arthur Ellen, who has worked with several major-league players, and has apparently helped some of them, including Dodger pitcher Don Sutton, remarkably. On March 24th, Steve Blass started the second game of a doubleheader against the White Sox at Bradenton. . The outfield consisted of Willie Stargell, Roberto Clemente, and Al Oliver. He sulks or rages, according to his nature; he asks for help; he works long hours on his motion. His hunched, airborne posture makes him look like a man who has just made a running jump over a sizable objecta kitchen table, say. Marty Perez walked. View Profile. . In the old days, he used to get mad at himself after a bad showing, and sometimes he threw things around in the clubhouse. Join Facebook to connect with Karen Lamb and others you may know. I am not a Pittsburgher, but looking at this photograph never fails to give me pleasure, not just because of its aesthetic qualities but because its high-bounding happiness so perfectly brings back that eventful World Series and that particular gray autumn afternoon in Baltimore and the wonderful and inexpungible expression of joy that remained on Steve Blasss face after the game ended. He hit Willie Stargell and Manny Sanguillen in batting practice; both players told him to forget it. It was the worst experience of my baseball life, Blass told me. What a player is thinking is about eighty per cent of it. But after this began, when he was taken out of a game he only gave the impression that he was happy to be out of thererelieved that he no longer had to face it that day. Lamb was also ordered to repay the money she stole. . To put it in simple terms, a good, middling pitcher should not surrender more than three or four walks per gameunless he is also striking out batters in considerable clusters. PITTSBURGH -- Steve Blass sat in the press conference room at PNC Park on Tuesday morning with a piece of paper in front of him. 2d 17h. Sustaining this kind of control over a stretch of, say, one hundred and thirty pitches in a seven- or eight-inning appearance places such excruciating demands on a hurlers body and psyche that even the most successful pitchers regularly have games when they simply cant get the job done. Professional sports have a powerful hold on us because they display and glorify remarkable physical capacities, and because the artificial demands of games played for very high rewards produce vivid responses. This is my debut book as an author. Log In. (Blass is myopic, and wears glasses while watching television and driving. 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