In August of 2011, singer-songwriter Jim Pellinger checked his email and found a message from The Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. They wanted a copy of his song "Circle Me Bert" for their library. He thought it was a joke. Who would pull such a prank he wondered? It was even more suspicious that the email arrived on his birthday. It had to be a joke.
But it wasn't. Bert Blyleven had been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame earlier that summer, and Cooperstown got wind of the song and wanted to hear it.
Back in 2002 Jim Pellinger had written a song and taken it to the producers at Fox Sports North in the hopes of getting it on their pregame show broadcast. The song celebrated Bert's then-new habit of circling fans in the audience with a telestrator during his duties as color analyst for Twins broadcasts. Bert's penchant for circling fans grew into a phenomenon among Twins fans, who showed up at Twins games in droves with "Circle Me Bert" signs. It seemed like good material for a song. Fox Sports North agreed and shot a video of the song performed by the fictional band "The CircleBerts", featuring Jim Pellinger, FSN sideline reporter Clay Matvick, and Bert Blyleven sporting an afro wig and playing tambourine. The song was a hit with the Twins organization as well, who gave away 10,000 CDs of "Circle Me Bert" to fans in attendance in the summer of 2002.
All these years later the "circle me Bert" phenomenon is still going strong, with fans showing up at every Twins game with "Circle Me Bert" signs. And if your are one of the 10,000 who got a "Circle Me Bert" CD in 2002 you have a little piece of the Baseball Hall of Fame. If not, you can still download an mp3 copy of the song.
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