Jim Souhan: On eve of induction, Blyleven offers a tip of the cap to baseball's past

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. - Bert Blyleven reached baseball's Hall of Fame by throwing a curve, and this week the Hall is throwing one right back at him.

Blyleven craved the immortality that Cooperstown promises. Now that he has arrived, he has trouble escaping reminders of mortality.

After waiting through 14 years of voting by the Baseball Writers Association of America and reaching 60 before being inducted, Blyleven looks around the museum and sees as many ghosts as plaques.

His father, Joe, died in 2004. The rare man to play alongside Kirby Puckett and Harmon Killebrew in a Twins uniform, Blyleven finds himself mourning both this week, even as he prepares for the induction ceremony on Sunday in a familiar field in Cooperstown.

"My dad is here, as far as his spirit," Blyleven said Saturday. "My mother cried. She wished that my dad was here.

"He is here. I feel him. So maybe he's not here body-wise, but he's here spirit-wise. And he's the one, in my speech tomorrow, I'm going to thank a lot, because he mentored me. He introduced me to the game of baseball.

"He's here."

"My mother, Jenny, she's 85 years old," Blyleven said. "She came in from California. That's a long way for her to come. My sisters, my brother, my kids, we're all on that porch, we're chasing people away.

"We got the rocker and got my mother up front. We reminisced about Pops, my dad, but also just enjoyed the company.

"What I do, with the broadcasting and also living in Florida, I don't see my family that much. It was a nice reunion, and that's part of what this ceremony is all about."

Blyleven will enter the Hall with second baseman Roberto Alomar and general manager Pat Gillick. He will think more about the people who helped him when he was a 19-year-old rookie pitching for a veteran team.

"Harmon Killebrew -- we lost him this summer," Blyleven said. "You look back at people who mentored you and who meant a lot to you as a player. I was very fortunate, when I first came up.

"How do you say thank you to everyone? That's the biggest thing for my induction speech tomorrow. How do you say thank you to everyone?"

Cooperstown is hard to reach, even if you're a fan. Most outstaters fly into Albany and drive 90 minutes on winding roads through farmland and small towns.

Upon arrival you find the village of Cooperstown and a main street devoted to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum along with a row of quaint shops and restaurants.

"I might move here," Alomar joked. "I might buy a house. Is there a real estate professional here?"

Blyleven has toured the museum, holding Walter Johnson's warmup jacket, Cy Young's jersey and Babe Ruth's bat. Saturday, he wished for a time machine that would allow him to see those items before they were artifacts.

Today, Blyleven will enter the closest thing living mortals have to a time machine. He'll become a member of the Hall of Fame, an accomplishment perhaps foreshadowed by his family name.

Blyleven said that when he was born in Holland, his birth certificate read: "Blijlaven." Canadian officials changed the name to its current spelling when his family emigrated.

"In Holland, it's 'Bly-LA-ven,' " he said. "Which means, 'Happy life.' "