OnlyBucs

Last night the Pirates and the City of Bradenton honered Steve Blass. There will be many speeches etc about Steve this final season with the Pirates broadcast crew. I am wondering before this season ends , and especially when they honor Steve at PNC Park, as to whether the Pirates retire his jersey #28. Who knows they could do it Opening Day.

When you consider the other retired #s for the Pirates Blass does not really qualify based upon his playing career. Now from the broadcasting side plus his playing career, it might be a possibility.



But then what do you do with two all-time great Pirate broadcasters Rosie Rosewell and Bob "The Gunner" Prince. These two guys made listening to a Pirate game on a transistor radio tucked under the pillow unbeknownst to my parents. There is currently no broadcaster who can hold a candle to those two and guys like Mel Allen (Yankees), Vin Scully (Dodgers), Harry Carey (Cards & Cubs), Ernie Harwell (Tigers) to name a few.



In my opinion, if the Bucs want to honor Blass name the Press Box in his honor and put up a sign in recognition on it. But do not retire his #.

72535B725951360 wrote: ... made listening to a Pirate game on a transistor radio tucked under the pillow unbeknownst to my parents.  There is currently no broadcaster who can hold a candle to those two and guys like Mel Allen (Yankees), Vin Scully (Dodgers), Harry Carey (Cards & Cubs), Ernie Harwell (Tigers) to name a few.


Man Possum, you just flooded my head with fond memories. For a grade school kid in Utah, who was a long way from a major league city, listening to baseball was a little difficult. But, when the sun went down, I could barely get the signal from KFI, a powerful 50,000 watt AM station that carried the Dodgers and was 650 miles from my bedroom. Loved Scully, hated his Dodgers (something about Hollywood that still resides in me).



I always knew when Roberto and my Pirates were in LA. The gentle AM crackle, a signal that would fade in and out, the transistor tucked under my pillow, gently fussing with the receiver wheel to see if a slight adjustment would grab the signal again, and my parents quite sure I was asleep opening the door and peeking in at some point as I lay perfectly still (playing possum as they say!), often listening until late into the night. A memory almost as sweet as waiting for the afternoon paper so I could pour through the box scores to see who hit well the night before and which Bucco was a Top 10 leader in a statistical categories (we hit so well back then, there was always someone in the BA leaders, usually Clemente and for whatever reason I was a huge fan of Matty Alou when he played for us).



School lunch was 25 cents and so was a pack of baseball cards. Lunch money was the only money I had and many times I was faced with the decision to eat, or add to my card collection by slipping off school grounds and heading to a market several blocks away, praying while I went I'd get a missing player, or even better, one of the World Series special cards from the year before. It was a stealthy journey I always took by myself. Simpler times, but baseball was taking up permanent residence deep within my soul. Great personal memories! "Transistor radio" took me there - thanks!

I don't think so. My first thought for #28 was Bill Robinson.

Blass was an outstanding pitcher for them for several years but not long enough to merit retiring his number. But his overall service to the organization certainly merits recognition: star pitcher, World Series hero, broadcaster, ambassador for the team. I got to know him a little bit and he's a great guy and a lot of fun to be around with his crazy sense of humor. He loves the Pirates, loves talking about them and people gravitate to him. And while I don't think they will retire #28, it would please me if they did because of his overall service to the team. Billy Meyer's number was retired after he had 1 winning season as mgr out of 5 and lost 96, 90 and 112 games in his final 3 seasons. But he was well liked as is Blass.