Ode to Steve Blass: Beloved Bucs voice feted

PITTSBURGH -- Saturday was Steve Blass Day at PNC Park. It was Steve Blass Day throughout Pittsburgh, actually. Mayor Bill Peduto declared it so.

The Pirates honored Blass during a pregame ceremony, which included the surprise announcement that Blass will be among the inaugural members of the soon-to-be-unveiled Pittsburgh Pirates Hall of Fame. Before a 65-minute rain delay and the Pirates' 4-2, 12-inning loss to the Reds on Saturday night, Blass addressed the crowd and threw out the ceremonial first pitch to his grandson, Christopher.

“This has been an overwhelming weekend. Overwhelming. The tributes, the kindness, the well-wishes,” Blass said. “One of the most important words I know is loyalty. When I was 18 years old, the Pittsburgh Pirates gave me a chance to live my dream. I continue to live it, and I will never, ever take it for granted. I will never forget this Pittsburgh Pirates organization that sent me along on this journey.”

Sunday will be Steve Blass’ day, too, even if there’s not a pregame ceremony like Saturday. The Pirates' pitcher-turned-broadcaster will step into the radio booth to call his final game before retiring, at the age of 77, at the end of his 60th year with the same organization.

The weekend will be full of shared memories about his work on the mound, highlighted by his two complete games in the 1971 World Series, and of his 34 years behind the microphone -- more than any broadcaster in Pirates history. And it will be emotional on the press level at PNC Park.

“I think we’re all kind of bracing ourselves. We’ve prepared the best that we can to try to get through it,” longtime broadcast partner Greg Brown said. “I’ve had people say, ‘How are you going to do it? How are you going to get through it?’ This is not a eulogy.

“This really is a great celebration, and I love the fact that he is absolutely going out at the top of his game, when he’s healthy, when he can spend more time with [wife] Karen and his family. I’m so proud of him for that.”

Brown, who has known Blass since 1986, and fellow play-by-play man Joe Block, who joined Pittsburgh’s broadcast team in 2016, have spent many of their summer days and nights sitting alongside Blass. As Blass entertained the audience during his last homestand, they shared some of their favorite things about working with the Pirates legend.

On Friday afternoon, before his final telecast with AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh, Blass and Brown hung out with a view of downtown and took part in a pregame ritual, this time captured on camera: They smoked cigars and told stories. The finality of this weekend was settling in for both.

“It’s starting to hit home, how many years have passed, and how many games and how many trips to the ballpark,” Blass told Brown. “It’s starting to well up, because this is it. We’re looking down the barrel now.”

Brown: “People have asked me a lot this year, ‘What’s it going to be like and how are you going to deal with it?’ I’ve talked about what a great human being he is, one of the most generous people, compassionate, the sincerity of the man. He’s just one of the greatest human beings with the biggest heart. But I’ve failed to mention each time that this guy is a tremendous broadcaster.”

Block: “You think about that and that ability to fill the time with stories rather than a bunch of stats or breaking down the plays. I think there’s value in those things. But really, the best thing -- if you could pick anything out of being a broadcaster that you could do -- is to be a storyteller. And who better than Steve Blass to tell stories? He’s so good at it. He creates such a warmth with the audience, and he just has first-hand stories that are virtually unmatched.”

Brown: “I’m as much to blame as anybody, but we should appreciate that more than we do -- how good he is at his craft, how proud he is of that. He kicks himself, to this day, if he felt like he had a bad game. Imagine that, after all these years. He takes such pride in his job that he really kicks himself. If we have a good ballgame -- a well-pitched and well-played ballgame -- and he’s on and it’s coming out and he’s clicking and he knows it, you can just feel it. You can sense it in that booth. After a ballgame, I kind of get the sense that I’m sitting next to him after he just pitched one of his complete games in 1969 and I’m sitting next to his locker and we’re sitting there having a beer. I get the sense that’s the kind of satisfaction he had back then, just knowing that, 'I’ve done good.'”

Everyone has a favorite Blass story, some sincerely touching, and most of them flat-out hilarious. Brown likes the one about the time catcher Manny Sanguillen came to the mound with the bases loaded and cheerfully told Blass, “You throw double play!” Blass was in disbelief, wondering aloud, “Like you can go to Sears and order it? On the telephone, just order up a double play?” On the next pitch, Blass gave up a bases-clearing double. Sanguillen returned to the mound, took off his mask and said, “I don’t say double! I say double play!”

Brown: “I’ve heard the stories a thousand times, probably, and each time I probably laugh harder than the last.”

Block: “Winning the World Series, winning Game 7 of the World Series, winning Game 7 of the World Series on the mound because you started the game and finished the game and won by a single run and there was a play made behind you that possibly saved a run. Wow. And you’re on the road. Wow. All this stuff, this is as good as it gets. And he lived it! I thought about the story that he tells. They’re sitting on the airplane. They’re coming back to Pittsburgh from Baltimore, and they’ve won it all. What is that feeling like? And he talks about Roberto Clemente, who was a very quiet man, stuck to himself quite a bit. He comes out from his row and says, ‘Steve, let me embrace you.’ … You can feel what that moment must have been like watching it from a different seat. And he lived it, and he felt the embrace of Roberto Clemente, and those two were the stars of the World Series. He’s always so demure about that, but those two were so integral to the Pirates winning that World Series. That moment, I think I can feel what it would be like to be right around that moment. For him to be able to describe it that way 48 years later, wow. That’s my favorite story, because for me and so many others, the aura of Clemente is so big. For Steve to have been right there with him just illuminates what Steve did on the baseball field and shows what kind of an iconic person he is in Pirates history, too. We were just very gratefully afforded more time with him than we were with Clemente.”

During Tuesday night’s telecast, before he and color commentator Bob Walk ventured into the stands to hang out with the four-legged Pup Night crowd, Blass fielded a series of questions from sideline reporter Robby Incmikoski. What’s the last country he visited? “Ohio,” Blass deadpanned. Was his jersey number, 28, lucky? “Every time I go to the casino, I play 28,” Blass said. “I’m still working, by the way.” On Friday night, Incmikoski quipped back: “Steve, you’re the second-funniest person I know. Everyone else is tied for first.” Blass chuckled after the punchline.

Brown: “He is able to inform in his own way, weave stories into a telecast or a broadcast like nobody’s business, and he’s able to allow the viewer or listener to enjoy the game with him. He just has a knack of doing this, where it’s a comfortable listen. It’s an enjoyable listen. He’s stealthy with his humor. If you’re not listening closely, you’ll miss it. There have been times over the years where he’s said something and I won’t get it until I’m driving home going, ‘My gosh, that son of a gun.’”

The Pirates created a logo for this season. It’s a “60” above “BLASS,” with the zero in the form of a microphone and the silhouette of Blass’ famous leap after Game 7 in the middle of it all. When he takes photos in front of that logo, Blass likes to pose in a very specific way. “Absolutely,” he said during a recent broadcast. “I do stand in front of the B-L, I’ll admit it. I do.”

Block: “My first interaction with Steve involved dirty jokes. This was as a Brewers broadcaster [in 2012], because he would come in and tell a joke to [Hall of Fame broadcaster Bob] Uecker every single time that we were here. It would be every day, and it would be a different joke. Steve is a student of comedy. He loves to study comedians’ timing, the way that they act, all that stuff. … That’s how I came to know Steve. Unfortunately, I can’t repeat any of the material -- partially because my senility is growing into my 40s and I can’t remember the jokes. The other ones that I can would probably not be better for our younger audience.”

Brown knew that this weekend would be hard, so he set out to enjoy his final year working alongside his friend. He decided to savor each moment, then to record as many of them as he could, then to share them on his Twitter account. Thus, #TheBlassChronicles were born.

Brown: “I guess I just wanted to soak it all in, keep it as much as possible. I’m not willing to give him up yet, so I guess that was my way of trying to keep him for as long as I could.”

Block: “When he told me the news, I started crying -- and then he started making fun of me immediately. If it’s going to hit me that way, I can only imagine the other guys that have worked with him so much longer and have grown to be even closer friends with him or our audience, who has had decades of that relationship with him.”

Brown has shared many wonderful moments, from their Spring Training broadcast with Mike “Doc” Emrick to Blass taking part in “seniors run the bases” in Sarasota, Fla., to an exchange with retiring Reds broadcaster Marty Brennaman. There’s video of Blass doing his seventh-inning toss down into the stands, a photo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette finally recognizing his birthday, a conversation with fans who made a special quilt for Blass and much more. But Brown has a favorite, which he shot on the way to this year’s MLB Little League Classic.

Brown: “Going to Williamsport, we decided that we would take the bus and not fly with the team. We decided, let’s enjoy the ride. We thought we’d sit in the back of the bus and chat. Steve is really a romantic. He loves the fall. He loves the beauty of the landscape. He loves the countryside. He loves New England. He just really is a romantic at heart. So we were chatting for a while on the way, sitting across from him. Then all of a sudden, I looked over, and I thought he might have been asleep because he had his chin in his hand looking out the window. Then I realized he was just staring at the countryside as it went by, and that’s so Steve. I videotaped that without his knowledge. Most of the stuff I’ve done, he’s aware of. That time, I thought, ‘Man, here he is. This is his last year. And here he is, busing -- again, so Steve -- rather than flying.’ That probably is my favorite. I thought that captured the essence of the year.”

On Thursday night, during his last broadcast with Block, Blass watched Pirates reliever Parker Markel heave a fastball over catcher Jacob Stallings and all the way to the backstop. Blass, whose name became synonymous with pitchers losing control due to his struggles in 1973-74, paused, then laughed. He was one of the National League’s best pitchers for a five-year stretch from '68-72, but he had also been where Markel was in that moment. “Here’s a step back in memory lane for me. Yes, sir! He used my set of mechanics in the latter part of my pitching career.”

“It wasn’t much fun, but that’s part of a life,” Blass continued. “You’re taught to be as decent with people when you’re bad as when you’re going good.” Blass can laugh about it now, in part because of what he calls his career record of 74-2: 74 good years, and two bad ones.

For Blass, there are still more wins to come.

Brown: “As he likes to say: Once he’s in the box, once he’s gone from this earth, he will have no regrets whatsoever. No one has lived life like Steve Blass. He’s such a remarkable human being.”