A man's story worth telling

By Ron Cook
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/
May 6, 2012

Former Pirates pitcher Dave Giusti doesn't bother knocking. His friendship with longtime teammate and Upper St. Clair neighbor since 1972, Steve Blass, is well beyond that. Giusti blows into the Blass house, accepts a beer, plops down on the back patio and commences to swapping stories. These guys are so entertaining they should write a book.

One did, actually.

Blass' "A Pirate For Life" is in the local bookstores.

It's almost as much fun as sitting with the fellas on a gorgeous spring afternoon.

"I thought I had a story worth telling," Blass said. "You can go through something bad career-wise and it doesn't have to destroy you. Work is what you do, it's not who you are."

Few athletes hit the heights that Blass did. He was a World Series hero for the Pirates in 1971, pitching two complete-game wins against the Baltimore Orioles, including the Game 7 clincher. No less than home-run king Hank Aaron told him he had the best slider in the National League.

On the flip side, few athletes crashed and burned the way Blass did. In '72, he was an all-star, finished second in the Cy Young voting and was on the cover of Sports Illustrated. In '73, he couldn't throw a strike. In '74, he was back in the minors. After briefly trying again in spring training in '75, he was out of baseball at 32.

Before the book, Blass never truly revealed his torment to anyone, not even to his family. He always laughed when people talked of other players with control problems having "Steve Blass Disease." But he was crying inside. "Many nights, I would sit in this backyard by myself until 3 or 4 in the morning and keep asking, 'Why is this occurring?' I never had a sore arm. I thought I was going to pitch forever. I just wanted to know why this was happening to me."

Blass never did get his answer or find a solution. Certainly, he tried everything, meeting with a hypnotist and a psychologist, practicing transcendental meditation, even switching to loose underwear because a hunter wrote to him that tight underwear threw his aim off.

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