Baseball ’90 PREVIEW : DEVIL OR ANGEL? : At 39, Bert Blyleven Continues to Throw Hitters--and Life--His Great Curve

You can just imagine the conversation between the producer and casting director:

“I need a pitcher who can give up a home run. And quick!”

A few calls later: “Uh, sir, we have Mr. Blyleven on the line.”

So began the silver-screen career of Bert Blyleven, Angel pitcher, long-ball server. Barring editing-room cuts, Blyleven will make his movie debut this summer when “Filofax,” a film starring Jim Belushi, is released.

It’s just a bit role in which Blyleven gives up a home run to Chicago’s Mark Grace that wins the World Series for Belushi’s beloved Cubs. An incarcerated Belushi stages a jailbreak to attend the game and makes a fabulous catch of Grace’s homer in the bleachers.

Announcer Joe Torre notices and seeks Belushi out for an interview. Belushi thinks the cops are after him. There’s a chase scene through Anaheim Stadium. . . . OK, enough of the script.

Suffice it to say, Blyleven won’t be on the Academy Awards invitation list, but the experience did give the 39-year-old pitcher an appreciation for actors.

“It’s a lot of hard work, and you have to admire guys like Jim Belushi, because the stress is really on them to do take after take after take,” Blyleven said.

So, how long did it take Blyleven to give up the home run?

“Oh, that only took a couple of pitches,” he said.

Yep, they found the right man for this job. The mound has at times been Blyleven’s personal gopher hill, a starting point for the major league-record 50 home runs he allowed in 1986 and the 46 he gave up in 1987. In eight other seasons during his 20-year career, Blyleven has allowed 20 or more homers.

Hollywood apparently knew of his reputation, but Blyleven didn’t feel exploited or miscast, even though he yielded just 14 home runs last year.

“It was the perfect role for me,” he said.

But one that barely scratches Blyleven’s potential as a performer. Blyleven, who will start today’s opener for the Angels against Seattle, is a multifaceted pitcher who has handled a variety of roles throughout his career.

To the managers he has played for, Blyleven has been a pillar of consistency, a pitcher they can almost always rely on for seven solid innings per start and 200 innings a season.

To his teammates, Blyleven has been a practical joker who can strike at any time, a guy who helps keep the players loose and the clubhouse atmosphere light.

To opponents, Blyleven has been the bearded villain, possessing possibly the game’s best curveball, a blur of a bender that baffles even the best batters.

To fans, Blyleven has been a regular on the transaction page, a talented and well-traveled pitcher who has been the ace of several mediocre staffs but also helped two teams win world championships.

To his family, Blyleven has been a fun-loving father who acts more like a kid.

And to writers, Blyleven has been a paradox--he is often funny and quotable but sometimes crude and obnoxious.

Blyleven will never be typecast. His body of work is a wide and varied one. A retrospective:

Some thought Blyleven’s horrendous 1988 season, in which he went 10-17 with a career-high 5.43 earned-run average for the Minnesota Twins, was the beginning of Blyleven’s fade to retirement. If he wasn’t over the hill, he was looking down the other side of it.

Angel General Manager Mike Port had a different view. He traded three minor-league prospects for Blyleven in a move that paid immediate dividends. Blyleven, recovered from the thumb injury that hampered him for much of 1988, went 17-5 with a 2.73 ERA last season, leading the American League in shutouts with five.

Nine times during the season, he won a game following an Angel loss. He stopped losing streaks of five and seven games. The Sporting News and UPI named Blyleven Comeback Player of the Year.

Blyleven, however, insists he never left.

“I guess Minnesota felt that because of all the years, I was toward the end of my career,” Blyleven said. “I kept telling them I wasn’t, but they wouldn’t believe me. So . . . ‘em!”

Blyleven sounds bitter, but says he isn’t. He requested a two-year contract extension in 1988, but negotiations with Twins GM Andy MacPhail broke down and Blyleven threatened to become a free agent. MacPhail, looking for more than the draft choice he’d receive if Blyleven became a free agent, got what he could for Blyleven.

“I respect Andy MacPhail,” Blyleven said. “He could have traded me to Cleveland or Atlanta.”

Blyleven, who grew up a few miles from Anaheim Stadium, thrived in the Big A, going 8-1. He also allowed only 14 home runs, nine with the bases empty.

“We’re not any more intelligent than many of our peers, but we felt Bert being from the area, not having the thumb problem and getting him into an outdoor park might all be part of a mix that would help him pitch better,” Port said.

Throw in one more ingredient--Blyleven’s desire for vindication--and the recipe was complete.

“The so-called critics probably thought I was over the hill, but I knew I’d be back,” Blyleven said. “They said my career was over, but they don’t know. Only I know. The American League hitters will tell me when my career is over. Not they. “

One Sunday last season, a clubhouse attendant brought a few dozen donuts for the players. When they arrived, each donut had one bite taken out of it.

Guess who?

At Boston, Angel utility man Glenn Hoffman thought it would be funny to stick a live lobster in Blyleven’s bag. Blyleven took the prank a step further, bringing the lobster aboard the plane and putting it in Port’s briefcase.

When the team arrived in Milwaukee, Blyleven decided to crunch the crustacean. So he stuck it under the wheel of the team bus.

Blyleven’s idea of a joke is to light someone’s shoes (known as a hotfoot), fill a teammate’s towel with shaving cream, throw a firecracker into a cluster of unsuspecting reporters, hide a small explosive in Manager Doug Rader’s cigarette.

“I’m just spontaneous,” Blyleven said. “I don’t sit around and think about it, things just happen. People in general leave themselves open to practical jokes.”

Along with his curveball, Blyleven brought a refreshing dose of levity to an Angel clubhouse that most often resembled a dentist’s waiting room in past seasons.

But with the switch to Rader, a proponent of the loose clubhouse, players such as Blyleven had free rein.

“It has helped because you come to the park knowing it’s going to be a lot of fun,” Angel pitcher Willie Fraser said. “Before, you knew what to expect, and it was the same thing all the time. It didn’t help team morale to keep guys in closets, and that’s more or less what happened. It got monotonous. Now, that doesn’t happen.”

Rader, for one, appreciates Blyleven’s humor.

“What guys like him help maintain throughout difficult times during the season is incalculable,” Rader said. “It’s a major, major plus.”

The Not-So-Perfect Angel

While Blyleven has done wonders for clubhouse camaraderie, his methods can leave outsiders cold. Offensive language, offensive gestures and offensive bodily functions are all part of Blyleven’s shtick.

As Angel pitcher Jim Abbott joked, “There were some sights, sounds and smells that came out of his area that weren’t always that pleasant.”

Even his wife, Patty, admits Bert can get pretty gross.

“One time I came home and Bert was teaching the kids to pick their nose and flick it,” Patty said. “I said, ‘Oh my God, you’re their father!’ ”

His teammates laugh these things off. “That’s Bert,” they say.

Not everyone laughs. Blyleven has been known to give reporters, especially women, a difficult time.

“I’m a firm believer that women should not be in a man’s clubhouse,” Blyleven said. “I realize they have a job to do, but what I’ve seen is a lot of women reporters hanging around. I know a lot of women would be upset with that, but that’s how I feel. If it offends them, well, it offends them.”

Don’t expect Blyleven to change.

“I’m sure he offends a lot of people, that’s just the way he is,” Angel catcher Lance Parrish said. “I don’t think he gives it a second thought. His objective isn’t to offend anyone, it’s just to be himself.”

The Sure Thing

Looking back on his career, Blyleven, who will make about $1.2 million this season, sees one thing. “Just consistency.”

It’s the common thread through his 20 years in the major leagues. Blyleven’s record may vary by year, but his ERA is usually under 3.50. It has gone above 4.00 four times.

His career strikeout-to-walk ratio is almost 3-to-1, and he has averaged fewer than two walks per start. He has averaged 7 1/3 innings per start and has a 271-231 career record. Even when he gave up all those home runs in 1986 and ‘87, Blyleven had winning records.

He has had only one major injury, a muscle tear in his right elbow that caused him to miss most of the 1982 season. He has spent only four other weeks on the disabled list.

The teams surrounding him weren’t always that good--remember, Blyleven played in Texas and Cleveland--but he usually was. Give him the ball and he’ll keep your team in the game.

Blyleven wastes little motion on the mound. Almost as soon as he gets the ball back from his catcher, he’s set to start his windup.

ESPN’s Chris Berman calls him Bert (Be Home) Blyleven, and the nickname is appropriate. When Blyleven pitches, his teammates usually can be home in time for the 11 o’clock highlights.

“I like to work fast--it keeps my defense alive,” Blyleven said. “My concentration level isn’t that high when I’m standing there thinking. I can’t think, so I have to just get the ball and throw.”

Another Blyleven staple: his unwavering mental approach to the game. He doesn’t sulk after losses and he doesn’t get too excited after victories. Port calls him the ultimate professional, and believes other pitchers can learn from him.

“When he doesn’t win, he allows himself five to 10 minutes of disconsolation, and then he’s back at it, preparing for his next start,” Port said. “I think the fellows who see that come away with a lesson that, after a tough outing, you don’t have to pine about it for four or five days.”

Added Parrish: “He’s been winning and losing in the big leagues for 20 years, and he has one of the better attitudes I’ve ever seen. Nothing affects him.”

The Natural

No one taught Blyleven the curveball. There were no instructional videos, no clinics, no extensive coaching. One day he just picked up a ball, threw it and it broke.

“It was always there,” Blyleven said of the curve. “It was just a matter of me finding it.”

To refine the pitch, Blyleven went to Dodger Stadium and studied Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. Many of his childhood years were spent sneaking into Anaheim Stadium but, unlike most kids, Blyleven wasn’t an autograph hound.

“Every opportunity I could, I went there to watch pitchers pitch,” Blyleven said.

His father, who moved the family from Holland to Canada and then to Southern California by the time Bert was five, built his son a mound in the backyard of their Garden Grove home.

A year after he graduated from Santiago High School, Blyleven was a 19-year-old rookie with the Minnesota Twins, helping the team win the 1970 AL West title.

“It made me grow up real quick,” Blyleven said. “But I knew I belonged in the major leagues even at the young age of 19,”

He never went back to the minors. Blyleven spent seven years with the Twins before moving to Texas; Pittsburgh, where he helped the Pirates win the 1979 World Series; Cleveland; back to Minnesota, where he helped the Twins win the 1987 world championship, and to California.

The uniforms changed, the reputation remained the same: Blyleven had one of the best curveballs in the game.

“I feel the curveball is a lost art today,” Blyleven said. “More pitchers are going to sliders, split-fingered fastballs, more off-speed stuff. You don’t see a lot of young kids throwing curveballs.”

Blyleven sees plenty of young kids, though. He broke in with the likes of Carl Yastrzemski and Frank Howard, and now he’s playing with guys who probably collected Blyleven’s baseball card when they were kids.

But there’s no rocking chair by his clubhouse cubicle, and no one calls him Old Man Bert.

“If they did, I’d blow their houses up,” Blyleven said.

Have Curve, Will Travel

Blyleven may have Hall-of-Fame credentials, but when thoughts turn to the great pitchers of his time, names such as Seaver and Ryan come up--not usually Blyleven.

Blyleven is the great curveball pitcher who has played for a lot of marginal teams, the restless righthander who never stayed in one place too long.

After his first seven years at Minnesota, Blyleven felt he was underpaid and threatened to become a free agent in 1976. The Twins traded him to Texas, where Blyleven spent two seasons before being traded to Pittsburgh.

Blyleven helped the Pirates win the 1979 world championship, but he had differences with manager Chuck Tanner. Blyleven, who had 20 no-decisions in 1979, felt Tanner pulled his starters from games too early.

So it was on to Cleveland, where Blyleven spent five seasons. But by 1984, it was obvious the Indians were opting for a youth movement, and Blyleven wanted no part of it. He asked to be traded. Wish granted.

He went to Minnesota and helped the Twins win the 1987 World Series. He was hoping to end his career in Minnesota but ran into more contractual problems and wound up in Anaheim.

There were times the outspoken Blyleven came off sounding like a malcontent, but he insists he was unhappy in only one place--Pittsburgh. And while all the moves might have hurt his reputation, Blyleven says it helped his career.

“Trades often help you because they give you a new determination,” Blyleven said. “Not only to show the new club they made the right move but to show the team that traded you that they made a mistake. That comes with pride.”

Like Father Like Son

The eldest of Blyleven’s four children, Todd, is a senior pitcher at Villa Park High School who already has a pretty good curveball. Bert taught him the pitch, along with a few other tricks of the trade.

Last summer, Todd pulled his first hotfoot on his Connie Mack League coach and a few shaving-cream pranks on some teammates.

“That’s my boy,” Bert said.

Bert is just another one of the boys in the Blyleven house. Patty Blyleven often teases Bert, telling friends she has five children--three sons, a daughter and Bert.

“He’s always either burping or passing gas or doing something,” Todd said of his father. “He’s always fun to have around.

“I look at friends who have these dads who are older, who are kind of serious and work and stuff, but I come home to a Dad I can joke around with, who acts your age. It’s been like that as long as I can remember. He’s always been a big kid.”