30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Monday, April 12, 2010

Mustaches & Fingers


I've been going to baseball games since I was a baby. But to be honest, my first memory of baseball is the Oakland Coliseum and the sounds of Kool & the Gang's famous song, "Celebration". After doing a little research, I was surprised to see that the song came out in the 1980's, which means that I was at least 8 years old when I had those memories. I'm a little ashamed that I can't remember any personal memories before that, but it is what it is.

I guess when I think about it, the 80's is where it all started for me. I started playing baseball... I started following baseball... and most importantly... I started collecting cards. But that's another story.

Today, I'm writing about one of my favorite players growing up. Like most people, I picked my idols for specific reasons. I liked Rickey Henderson, because he was the A's best player. I liked Ozzie Smith, because he made impossible defensive plays and could do a back-flip. And I liked Tony Gwynn and Kirby Puckett, because they were kind of stocky, but could hit for average. All four of these players have one thing in common... I liked them because of their baseball skills. Well... the last guy I idolized was an amazing pitcher, but I could care less about his skills. In fact the reason I liked him was because he had the coolest mustache in baseball. Yep, you guessed it... Rollie Fingers.

I started seeing him on cards that I pulled out of packs. Later I found out that a buddy of mine is related to him, so that made Mr. Fingers even cooler. Eventually, I discovered that he played for the A's & Padres (my two favorite teams) and I became a fan of his for life. Last week, I picked up my second autograph of Mr. Mustache and I'm glad I bought it, because it brought back a lot of great memories from my childhood. Thank you Mr. Fingers/Mr. Mustache!


2 comments:

cynicalbuddha said...

I have to agree with you fuji he's one of my favorites too. And don't forget he played for my favorite team too the Brewers and help take them to their only World Series appearance, well him and an awesome team with some of my other favorites. He's such an underrated HOF now but he pretty much revolutionized the concept of relief pitching. I actually have a blog dedicated to him the rollie fingers collector. And that's a great pick up by the way. I love the bat barrel, ball, and glove sweet spot autos there sweet. Plus you can usually pick up Mr.Fingers pretty cheap too.

Fuji said...

Sweet Fingers blog, cynicalbuddha. Yeah, I'll probably pick up a few more Fingers in the near future. Thanks for reading my blog!