Blomberg for the Hall of Fame

Ron Blomberg played just 7 years in the majors. Although he hit .293 lifetime, including back to back years of .329 and .311, he never had a hundred hits in a season. Never got over 300 at bats in 162 games either. In 'grey', 'black' and HOF indicators his career pitched a perfect game - zero, zero, zero. Blooms was slower than your great grandma and to do justice to his terrible fielding is damned near impossible. After much study, the closest I can get to approximating Ron in the field is to say he made Bill Buckner look like Fred Astaire.

The Atlanta native also belongs in the Hall of Fame.

Not the one in Cooperstown, nor a designated hitters hall, though he was the very first of that American League breed. Not even the bad hands hall; the plaques keep falling off the walls.

The eaters' Hall of Fame.

To say Blomberg could disappear groceries is similar to saying Mark McGwire's power was decent or Jayne Mansfield had a pretty fair chest. This man's gargantuan appetite was the stuff of Paul Bunyan legend. So much so that I was amazed to see him listed at just 6'1, 205. Maybe his birth dimensions?

Though Blooms had led the Carolina League in homers 5 years before I got to Kinston in 1975, his talents at the table were what held baseball men, fans and English majors in monosyllabic awe. Kinston had a burger joint called Ray's Kingburger, and once a week they put an add in The Daily Free Press for a burger. Any minor leaguer's eyes would light up at the chance to stretch his meager paycheck, but for Ron it was the kind of love preachers adamantly oppose in sermons. One day he walked in there with THIRTY-SIX coupons and walked out with 3 generously grease stained bags of burgers (Rays was very good if you were very drunk, very stoned or very Blomberg).

Kenansville had a classy steakhouse, The Country Squire, whose menu star was a Godzillian 52 ounce steak, fully accessorized. The price was probably about 40 bucks, but the deal was, if you somehow managed to conquer the slab in one sitting (leaving the table once you sat down was verboten), it was on the house. Monster steaks were no match for The Mouth of the South, North, East and West. 3 were inhaled in successive visits before Ron was permanently barred.

The final story was disbelievingly told by Kinston's then general manager, who swore it was true(so help him Bud). The day Blomberg was promoted to Manchester in AA fell after an open date. Ron was on a fishing trip, so the GM had to find Blomberg, tell him the good news, and bring him back to pack. On the way to Kinston, Ron, who hadn't eaten, got the GM to stop at a dinky country store. Bloomy went in, strode out with an extra long loaf of bread, and ate it all in the car.

Then he had breakfast.

Good thing he wasn't Moses. He might've eaten the Ten Commandments.