World of B

The backup first baseman on my amateur baseball team is a good friend of mine, a father of two and a heckuva nice guy, but more interesting, he’s a former batboy for the Minnesota Twins. His stint for the hometown nine took place quite a few years back, and he was technically just a fill-in so his time was brief, but he was around long enough to pass along the following story.

The year was 1987, and my friend Mike walked into the clubhouse to prepare for his batboy duties. The players were preparing for their game, taping their wrists and yanking up their stirrups and drinking greenies and whatnot, when all of a sudden, pitcher Bert Blyleven came rushing in from another room, whooping in delight with a Polaroid in his hand.

Mike watched as Bert ran around to the players to reveal the photo and saw the teammates howl with humor and disgust. Finally, after the Polaroid made its rounds with the teammates, Mike was able to view it.

Pictured in the photo: a turd. A giant turd, in fact, made by one Bert Blyleven. A few minutes earlier, as Blyleven was finishing his business in the john, he looked down toward the bowl and decided this gigantic curl of a dump needed to be memorialized for eternity. So he tracked down a camera, snapped the shot and commenced his showing off to the teammates. He was apparently so proud of this most historic crap, that he hung the photo on his locker, where it would stay for the next few months.

So, there you go. Bert Blyleven is the type of guy who photographs his own bowel movements and mounts it on his locker for all to see. For those who know of him, this probably isn’t shocking information.

Nevertheless, it had to be shared.