Well It’s About Time: Bert Elected to HOF

Bert Blyleven was elected to to the Baseball Hall of Fame today along with former Indians second baseman Roberto Alomar. For Blyleven it has been a long wait and the election is well deserved.

Bert has won over the hearts of Twins fans everywhere for not only his on the diamond performances, but for his play-calling in the booth as the sidekick voice of the Minnesota Twins.However, Blyleven got the nod for the Hall for his impressive statistical career. Bert is a member of the 3,000 strikeout club and ranks 5th currently on the All-Time strikeout list with 3,701. He also has an impressive 60 career shutouts which was one of the bolstering stats that got him elected — finally. Blyleven also has the honors of being a 2 time All-Star,  2 time World Series champion, AL Comeback Player of the Year in 1989, throwing a no-hitter September 22, 1977,  having a career record of 287-250, a  .331 career ERA, amassing 4,970 career innings pitched, and being a 3-time ML shutout leader in ’73.

How he has been left out this long is beyond me.

The good news is he is finally in. It was becoming painful this time of year as Hall of Fame talks would surface and Bert’s name would be kicked around as the guy who should get in, but somehow never did. He garnered somewhat of a cult following regarding his Hall of Fame non-status and baseball writers wither  had no one better to vote in or finally realized their crimes against justice. They also in a way corrected the Blyleven debacle by not only electing the man, but electing Roberto Alomar who had similar statistics to Blyleven only in batting categories and was looking at the same road Bert went down. Both are in and baseball writers can breath easy knowing a lot of people are off their backs.

No matter how you spin it or see it, our guy is in after over a decade long wait. Blyleven has been eligible since 1998, and needed to get in this year or faced the pity election by the veterans commitee. Thankfully Bert is in the traditional way so no one can take any of this away from him. After all Bert Blyleven has deserved this and was very humble about not getting in, and now he finally is.

Congratulations Bert Blyleven on being elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.