Vol. III, Issue #2 - July 2015
**
Dick Bremer
- Play by Play Announcer of
the Minnesota Twins and a Strat Player
**
(We never know which individuals who are linked to Major
League Baseball, from the actual ballplayers
themselves to sports writers, statistical analysts, managers and
coaches and even sportscasters -- may have
inspired by Strat-o-matic Baseball earlier in life which
then helped with their professional careers! )
(Comments from the
Wolfman:
It is always a great honor to present
to our readers such an opportunity as this, to speak to one of the most well
known individuals linked to Major League Baseball as we have the
chance again in this interview. We, the publishing team
for the Ultimate Strat Baseball Newsletter are excited to be
able to share this special interview with Dick Bremer, who is
in his 32nd year as one of the TV broadcasters
for the Minnesota Twins, who does the Play by Play. As it turned
out, he has also
played strat-o-matic baseball in the past and uses his knowledge
of the game we love, at times, to describe the game that he is
broadcasting. Please find below his bio from the website of the
Minnesota Twins:
DICK BREMER, TELEVISION,
PLAY-BY-PLAY
The 2015 season will be Dick Bremer's 32nd season as a
broadcaster for the Twins. The Minnesota native graduated from
St. Cloud State University in 1978. Following his graduation he
worked for three years in Cedar Rapids, IA as a sportscaster for
WMT-Radio and TV (now KGAN-TV). While there, he began his
play-by-play career doing University of Iowa basketball for two
years.
He was named weekend sportscaster at WTCN-TV (now KARE-11) in
1981. After two years, he left to begin
his Twins play-by-play career with Spectrum Sports in 1983. He
remained there until 1985 while also doing Minnesota North Stars
games. He rejoined the Twins broadcast team in 1987 and has
remained there working for Twinsvision, Midwest Sports Channel
and FS North.
In 2013, Dick was the recipient of the Silver Circle Emmy for
Broadcast Excellence and inducted into the Minnesota Museum of
Broadcasting Hall of Fame.
Throughout his career, he has also done Minnesota Vikings
preseason football, University of Minnesota men's hockey,
football and basketball and the Minnesota State High School
League's football and girl's and boys' basketball tournaments.
Dick and his wife, Heidi, along with son Erik and daughter
Hannah, make their home in St. Michael, MN.
-----------------------
Mr. Bremer is joined in the
Twin's broadcasting booth with two very well known ex-Twin ball
players including:
Bert Blyleven
- Hall of Fame ex-Twins starting pitcher with 287 lifetime
victories, who is only one of three ex-major league pitchers to
win a game before he turned 20 years of age and win another game
after he turned 40 years of age, he is a color analyst and has
been doing so for 20 years now.
Roy Smalley
- ex-Twin player who still holds quite a few of the
life-time Twins hitting records, played various infield positions,
was part of the 1987 Minnesota Twins championship team, another
color analyst for the games which he has been working as for 13 years
now.
-----------------------
How I discovered that Mr. Bremer has a
strong affinity with Strat-o-matic, is by mistake (supposedly). I
was reading a twitter post on my personal twitter page for the
newsletter when I read by a post by a twitter friend that Mr. Bremer, in a recent airing
of a Twins game, that he was using "Strat Speak". That is, on the air
he was discussing what type of pitcher's hitters card the
pitcher who was batting would have and then Bert Blyleven made a comment
about the card he thought he would have had when he was still in
his playing days.
So then the next question always is, "How do I contact Mr.
Bremer?". I did send him a message on twitter but I didn't
know how good this would do as many people who are public
personalities use twitter to share their ideas and comments but
don't try to follow all the people who send them a message back.
Well I found via an on-line search for Mr. Bremer's name, that
there was a broadcasting orientated organization located in the
Minneapolis area that had placed Mr. Bremer into their Hall of
Fame of local broadcasters to recognize the fine work he has been
doing for the Twins. I asked the public media person for this
organization if he could forwarded an email to him on my
behalf requesting an interview and this gentlemen did so quite
quickly actually. Before I knew it, there in my email box was Mr.
Bremer's reply (this was early July before the All Star Game), to
contact him afterwards, which I did.
Then just as I was about to
put out this edition of our newsletter, Mr. Bremer sent me an
email back with answers to the various questions that you will see
below. So this is how I was able to get in touch with him.
As our readers know, we try to interview
special individuals such as Mr. Bremer who are both linked to
MLB and at some time in their younger days played Strat-o-matic
Baseball as well. So everyone, get set, get ready as here
is our first interview with Dick Bremer ...............
Interview with
Dick Bremer
(TV Play-by-Play
Announcer and fellow Strat Gamer)
Wolfman:
Mr. Bremer welcome to the "Ultimate Strat
Baseball Newsletter"!!
Mr. Bremer, I see you were born in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Therefore, when
you were young, were you a baseball fan and did you root for the
Twins all of your life? Who were some of your favorite baseball
players when you were young?
Dick
Bremer:
I was born in St. Paul, Minnesota but
moved to a very small town in western Minnesota at the age of
one. My most vivid baseball memories as a child involved
watching/listening to Twins baseball after they arrived from
Washington, D.C. in 1961 and watching the town team play ball on
the town ball-field in my backyard. My favorite players growing
up were Bob Allison and Camilo Pasqual. I wanted to be like
Bob...tall, good-looking and athletic, but only made it on one
of those fronts...I'm 6'2".
Wolfman:
Did you yourself, ever play baseball when
you were younger like in little league or high school and if so
what was your best position?
Dick
Bremer:
I first played organized baseball when we
moved to central Missouri in the mid-60's. I played little
league while splitting my major league allegiance between the
Twins and the Cardinals. By going to some Cardinal games,
I was able to see Mays, Aaron and Clemente play and I'm very
grateful for that. It looked like the Twins and Cardinals were
going to meet in the 1967 Series. I'm quite sure my Twins
heritage would have overwhelmed my level of devotion to the
Cardinals.
I played high school and town team baseball when we moved back
to Minnesota in the early 70's. I pitched and played shortstop
and 1st base. I tried out for the college team at St. Cloud
State my freshman year and believe I still own an NCAA record by
being cut before the team's first official practice. I figured
that I had to find another way to get into the games for free
and started working for the college radio station.
Wolfman:
Now at the present time you are in an
enviable position to be intricately linked to Major League
Baseball with the team you grew up with, as their play-by-play
sports announcer. How did you get this job? Did you do
some announcing for sports in some other capacity before
accepting the job to do the Minnesota Twins?
|
 |
Dick Bremer:
The first
baseball game I announced was a major
league game...the home opener for the
Twins in 1983. I took a very
unorthodox route to the baseball
broadcast booth and now am enjoying my
32nd year announcing Twins baseball.
(photo to your
left: -
Mr. Bremer spending time with
ex-Minnesota Twins manager Ron
Gardenshire.)
|
Wolfman:
Do you also have the opportunity to get to
know the Minnesota Twins players themselves? Are you on a
friendly basis with any of the current players or any of the
former players you have known in your many seasons as the Twins
TV announcer?
Dick
Bremer:
In my career, it's been my honor to work
in the booth with many of my childhood heroes, including Harmon
Killebrew, Jim Kaat and Bert Blyleven. While many fans
flashback to their baseball heroes' baseball cards, I often
flashed back to their Strato cards. I can still picture Harmon's
"3" column while he was in his prime.
Wolfman:
At what age did you first come into
contact with Strat-o-matic Baseball? How did you learn about
this baseball game?
Dick
Bremer:
While we lived in central Missouri, a
cousin of a friend of mine introduced us to Strat-O-Matic.
In very short order, I built for myself my own field out of plywood
including outfield walls that allowed me to rattle the dice like
a craps table. In 1968 and 1969, I decided to play entire
seasons. I'd look in the newspaper and see which teams
were playing that day and play those games (with the prior
year's cards, of course). I kept stats and standings and
got to the point that I could play a 9-inning game in about 10
minutes.
When my son was about the age that I had
been when I had my
introduction to SOM, I brought out my 1969 cards and taught him
how to play. He not only bought his own cards the next
year, but he purchased his own card he had made for himself. His
card made Barry Bonds cards from 15 years ago look like Eddie
Brinkmann's.
In summary, Strat-O-Matic
has been a big part of my life and has been instrumental in
building the passion I have for baseball. In my travels, I
am blessed to be able to meet many of the baseball players I
grew up following as a child. From Hall of Famers like
Hank Aaron to good run-of-the-mill players like Pete Ward ... I
can't help but reflect on their SOM cards and quietly hope that
they don't roll a 2-12 ... ground out plus injury.
Wolfman:
Mr. Bremer thank you so much for taking
time out of your busy schedule to answer our questions. We hope
that the Minnesota Twins are able to make it back into the
playoffs this year, as they are having a much better season than
most people thought. I am sure that your style of
broadcasting is not inspiring and firing up the Twins' fans but
their players as well. All the best.
|
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Contained inside this exciting issue of Ultimate Strat
Baseball Newsletter:
(to view the various interviews, articles, columns and special
sections click on the links {underlined}
and this will take you to the appropriate webpage)
♦
RETURN TO NEWSLETTER MAIN PAGE
♦
VIDEO INTERVIEW with HAL RICHMAN,
The creator of Strat-o-matic Baseball, speaks to our "Johnny on
the Spot" earlier this year during "Opening Day" as we finally we
are granted permission to share this unique and special interview with
our members. This is one of several interesting videos that we have on our Youtube
Channel, click on the Bright Blue Link above or the Youtube Link
below to view this interview (18+ minutes):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rN06fLgM_U
♦
REPORT with TOM
NAHIGIAN (1961 cards),
Personal friend of the Wolfman, known in Guzzo's book as "The
Collector", returns and we take a peak at some of the early
strat cards printed.
♦
COLUMN: "STRAT THOUGHTS" with BRUCE BUNDY,
BB as we affectionately call him returns with another special
column sharing strategies to win with your draft Strat Team.
♦
REPORT: FUNNY & AMAZING STRAT/MLB
STORIES (various - new column), Various friends linked
with SOM Baseball sharing some of their most funny and amazing
stories linked to the game or Major League Baseball, start of a
new column.
♦
REPORT: GREATEST GAMES EVER PLAYED
(various - new column, replays),
Two members of the Strat-o-matic.net forum, share with us the
greatest baseball games they have ever played during a replay
season start of a new column.
♦
REPORT: The BRUCE FOSTER
CHALLENGE with WOLFMAN SHAPIRO (online SOM Baseball, 4 part
report),
editor of "The Ultimate Strat Newsletter"
challenges Bruce Foster, one of the most successful managers
playing the Internet SOM Baseball version using the All Time
Greats set, to follow his unique strategy, joins a league and
reports how his team does.
♦
COLUMN: "COMMISSIONER's CORNER" with MARC WASSERMAN
-- The return of the "Commish" with another insightful article
for his column as he focuses upon how to build a team that will
compete for your league's championship.
♦
RECOMMEND
ON-LINE SOM & MLB RESOURCES -- On-line Strat-o-matic and Baseball related websites
that offer amazing information, special tools and products to improve
your game play
that we strongly recommend. In most cases, we have had personal contact with
these sources who agree with the principle to work together and help promote each other.
♦
BOOKS TO
DIE FOR and Become a BASEBALL GURU -- This page
is specifically about special books we are finding that either will
expand your insights about the game of Baseball, help you in the
creation of your current league teams or with your replays and
learn more about the Strat-o-matic
Baseball Game and Game Company's
history. We
have a special arrangement with Acta Sports, who is a publisher
of a number of great baseball books (including Bill James
Handbooks) to offer for our members
a 10% discount. We will continue to add more books to this page in the future
as we uncover other gems our members should know about.
Contact Us for Questions or Submissions:
Wolfman
Shapiro
Founder/Editor, the
Ultimate Strat Baseball Newsletter
email:
wolfman@ultimatestratbaseball.com
facebook:
www.facebook.com/wolfman.shapiro
twitter:
@StratBaseball4U
