Steve Blass on retirement, hope for current Pirates, goofy minor league promos, and cow patty bingo - TribLIVE

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With seven years of minor league baseball under his belt, former Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Steve Blass thought he had seen every possible goofy baseball promotion or fundraiser.

Cow milking and greased pig catching while with the Kinston Eagles in 1962 leap to mind.

“I lost horribly (at cow milking),” Blass said during Friday’s “Breakfast With Benz” podcast. “But I almost caught the greased pig. I was quick. But the pig didn’t want to be caught. And I’m pretty sure the cow that I had didn’t want to be milked … at least by me.”

Sixty years after that experience, the long-time Pirates broadcaster is now going to be the emcee of a similar promotion: cow patty bingo.

The fundraising event is taking place at the Oakmont Country Club East Course on Sunday from 1-4 p.m.

For those unfamiliar with cow patty bingo, picture a high school football field, or in this case a golf course, sectioned off into a blocked grid like a bingo board or a Super Bowl pool.

Now picture a cow doing, um, what a cow might do in that field after a large meal. If that cow does its business in the block you purchased, you win the pot of money.

On Sunday, that’ll be $5,000 from the Howard Hanna Children’s Free Care Fund. The group’s funds go toward the support of local children’s hospitals and regional pediatric free care programs that provide children with medical care, treatments and services.

For this event, organized through Howard Hanna and the Pirates Alumni Association, people can buy $50 blocks — with proceeds going to the fund — in hopes that the cow (or two cows for this event) will come out of the “bullpen” and hear Mother Nature’s call and “deposit” in their square to win the grand prize.

With Blass running point for the whole spectacle.

“I have done a ton of charity work in Pittsburgh. I’m very proud of it. But I have never been asked to emcee cow patty bingo,” Blass said. “But I’ve got my bib overalls, my old straw hat, and my flannel shirt and I’m ready to go. I’m a friend of the cows.”

Anyone who has seen Blass host a charitable event — something he has done thousands of times since coming to Pittsburgh in 1964 — won’t be surprised by the level of commitment to the bit. Few engage an audience and own a room (or an open-field block pool) in that kind of capacity as Blass does.

Even if he is playing second fiddle to a pair of gassy bovine leading ladies — two cows Blass has dubbed “The Duchess of Dung” and the “Princess of Poop.”

Blass retired after 34 years of broadcasting in September 2019, concluding a relationship with the Pirates franchise that spanned six decades. But with the pandemic halting a lot of ability to travel and interact with friends and family, Blass argues that 2021 has been his first real “retirement year.”

That said, being involved in charity fundraising work is something the 79-year-old Blass doesn’t want to stop doing.

“What better thing is there that you can do other than to help kids and their families? Nothing. It’s unassailable,” Blass said.

The kitchy, podunk nature of Sunday’s event instantly transported Blass back to his minor league days.

“I could’ve added five hours to ‘Bull Durham,’” Blass said of the iconic minor league baseball movie.

“Riding in station wagons that didn’t have any floorboards. Being on a bus for 14 hours with teenagers sleeping in the luggage racks. Or doing what they had to do down the aisle of the bus. The smell of the food. We got to know each other a lot more than we needed to.”

But Blass insisted those years made him into the major league pitcher that he would become — one that threw two complete games in the 1971 World Series.

“One of the biggest things that young players who finally get called up to the big leagues have to be aware of,” Blass said. “Don’t fall into the trap of just being happy to be there. Now let’s see how good you can be.”

Blass said two current Pirates, Jacob Stallings and Bryan Reynolds, are two good examples of players who worked their way into Major League Baseball and have shown an ability to get better and improve themselves as players once they got on the game’s biggest stage.

“The air is so thin. I was a guy as a rookie who got up there and got sent back. And then made my way up for the next eight or nine years. I found out I had to get my act together,” Blass said.

He did. To the tune of 103 MLB wins and a World Series ring. And now … cow patty bingo.

Blass, a former hay-baling ranch hand when he was growing up in Connecticut, says he has made sure that the event organizers have the cows primed for the big day.

“We’ve quarantined the duchess and the princess and put them on a diet last week,” Blass deadpanned. “They should be ready to go.”

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Listen: Steve Blass’ entire appearance on the “Breakfast With Benz” podcast here

Tim Benz is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tim at tbenz@triblive.com or via Twitter. All tweets could be reposted. All emails are subject to publication unless specified otherwise.

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