Demythologizing Bert's Famous "Bad Luck"

The June 1976 SI article was published shortly after Bert's first appearance with the Rangers, in which Bert and Mark "The Bird" Fidrych each went 11 innings, with the Tigers prevailing, 3-2. Including Bert's last two starts with the Twins, this made the third consecutive start where Bert had pitched well and been tied going into the late innings but lost. But the SI article wasn't a product of Bert's disappointing results in tight games over the preceding few weeks. The SI article was prompted by two conspicuous aspects of Bert's record that had persisted for years. First, Bert's W-L record never seemed to match the rest of his record - the superior ERAs, the shutouts, the complete games and the strikeouts. Second, Bert had a propensity to lose a lot of close games in the late innings.

Bert's fanatical supporters always have two deceptively simple explanations at the ready for Bert's mediocre W-L records in the '70s: he received poor run support, and he was unlucky. Each of these two rationalizations offered by Bert's backers fail completely to explain Bert's relatively poor W-L records, and each are particularly absurd for having been offered by people who purport to possess some degree of sophistication in statistical analysis. Each can be dismissed quickly and definitively.

Boswell on Blyleven (or, "Bert Backers Bash Boswell")

Of all the commentary in the aftermath of the HOF voting results I was most struck by the following comments by Thomas Boswell during the course of an online chat at the Washington Post website:

"The push for Blyleven drives me crazy. I follwed his whole career. His reputation was that, more than any other top stuff pitcher, he would find a way to lose or not to win. He's just not a HOFer, in my book. He only won 20 games one time and more than 17 only twice! And he pitched in the era when top starters got 4-5 more starts a year and 20 wins was easier. BB had nine seasons with 36-to-40 starts and averaged 38 in those years. When Chuck Tanner got him in Pittsburgh the word went around that Chuck had decided, over BB's protestations, to take him out of late-and-close games because he'd never had the stomach for it. 'Take him out before he can lose.' Tanner never said it in public. But BB's winning opercentage gets better."

Bert Backers immediately denounced Boswell and charged him with trafficking in baseless rumors and innuendo. Sites like this one slammed Boswell, saying "Boswell will die with that 'word went around' crap in his head."

Well, we'll never know what was in Chuck Tanner's head, and Chuck is a classy guy and he ain't sayin'. But we do know the following: Boswell is absolutely correct regarding Blyleven's reputation, and Chuck Tanner did indeed resort to a quick hook with Blyleven beginning in the 1979 season, a strategy that succeeded wildly and was a critical part of the Bucs' march to the World Series that year.

I get the impression a lot of Bert Backers are too young to have closely followed the game back in the '70s, but Bert's reputation as a guy who lost the close ones and stumbled in the late innings of tight games is simply a fact, and also a matter of record. That was Bert's reputation; Boswell remembers it correctly. I remember it, too, and anyone else who followed the game back then would also remember it.