Blyleven Whines About the Lack of Thome Coverage

On Monday, August 15 Minnesota Twins slugger Jim Thome hit the 599th and 600th home runs of his impressive career. When he sent Daniel Schlereth's 2-1 pitch over the left center field fence he became just the eighth man to hit 600 homers in Major League Baseball history. It was great to see Thome celebrate with his teammates and his family. By all accounts he is one of the real good guys in the game and nobody deserved the moment more.

The only thing that took away from the moment for me was Bert Blyleven. He is an announcer for the Minnesota Twins and he was busy whining about how Thome's feat wasn't getting enough attention. Blyleven compared the coverage that Derek Jeter got for his 3,000th hit and the coverage of Thome's exploits. He said that the media acted like Jeter was the first to ever get 3,000 hits, not the 28th. Well I had heard about Thome quite a bit and if he hadn't hit both 599 and 600 in the same game the buildup would have been greater. There are also a few other reasons:

1. The home run has been devalued because of the steroids era. I have little doubt that Thome did it clean, but he is taking a hit for other's actions just the same.

2. One plays in Minnesota the other plays in New York. Not only that but Jeter has played his whole career in New York, while Thome bounced around from Cleveland to Philadelphia to Chicago to Los Angeles and finally to Minnesota. He has only been with the Twins two years, so even they didn't seem to be making that big a show of it.

3. The Twins have struggled this season and fewer people are paying attention to them. Granted the upcoming milestone itself should have generated some buzz, but if the team was playing well it would have increased.

I guess Blyleven needs to find new things to snivel about since he can no longer whine about not being a Hall of Famer. He finally convinced enough people that he belongs in Cooperstown and was enshrined this year. I won't let Blyleven's inferiority complex stop me from enjoying Thome's great achievement, so congratulations Jim on your 600th blast. One day you will be enshrined in Cooperstown yourself along with Jeter and Blyleven and at least two of you will deserve to be there.

More from this contributor:
Top Five Second Basemen in the Hall of Fame
Is Bernie Williams a Hall of Famer?

Source:
baseball-reference.com