Early Life and Minor League Career
Fingers was born in Steubenville, Ohio to George Michael Fingers and Edna Pearl (née Stafford) Fingers.
His father (who had also played minor league baseball for the St. Louis Cardinals and roomed with Stan Musial), worked in a Steubenville steel mill. George Fingers came home from work fed-up one day, said "That's it, we're moving to California," and sold the house for $1,500 and bought a car and took the family to Cucamonga. They could not afford hotels so they slept in sleeping bags beside the highway. After getting to California George Fingers had to eventually go back to work in another steel mill.
Fingers attended Upland High School in the Californian city of Upland, and then one semester at Chaffey Junior College.
The Los Angeles Dodgers offered Fingers a signing bonus of $20,000, but because they had a solid pitching staff, that included Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale, were already winning pennants, and their farm system appeared to be full of talented players, he felt he would not make it the major leagues for years. He turned them down and signed for less money, $13,000 signing bonus, with the Kansas City Athletics, on Christmas Eve 1964. At first the A's did not know whether to make him a pitcher or outfielder, but after deciding on pitcher, he was sent to Leesburg, Florida (Florida Southern League) for the 1965 season, then Modesto, California (California Athletic League) in 1966, and finally to Birmingham, Alabama (Southern League) for two seasons, 1967 and 1968.
Just nine days after he got married to his high school sweetheart and the Upland High School team statistician (Jill), on minor league opening day 1967 in Birmingham (with the Birmingham A's), a ball hit Fingers in the face, breaking his cheekbone, jaw, and knocking out some teeth. His jaw was wired shut for five weeks and when he returned he jumped every time the ball was hit; it took him about half the remaining season to get used to being on the mound again.
Read more about this topic: Rollie Fingers
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early, life, minor, league and/or career:
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“The secret of heaven is kept from age to age. No imprudent, no sociable angel ever dropt an early syllable to answer the longings of saints, the fears of mortals. We should have listened on our knees to any favorite, who, by stricter obedience, had brought his thoughts into parallelism with the celestial currents, and could hint to human ears the scenery and circumstance of the newly parted soul.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There is in him, hidden deep-down, a great instinctive artist, and hence the makings of an aristocrat. In his muddled way, held back by the manacles of his race and time, and his steps made uncertain by a guiding theory which too often eludes his own comprehension, he yet manages to produce works of unquestionable beauty and authority, and to interpret life in a manner that is poignant and illuminating.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“To minor authors is left the ornamentation of the commonplace: these do not bother about any reinventing of the world; they merely try to squeeze the best they can out of a given order of things, out of traditional patterns of fiction.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“He will deliver you from six troubles; in seven no harm shall touch you. In famine he will redeem you from death, and in war from the power of the sword. You shall be hidden from the scourge of the tongue, and shall not fear destruction when it comes. At destruction and famine you shall laugh, and shall not fear the wild animals of the earth. For you shall be in league with the stones of the field, and the wild animals shall be at peace with you.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Job 5:19-23.
“I doubt that I would have taken so many leaps in my own writing or been as clear about my feminist and political commitments if I had not been anointed as early as I was. Some major form of recognition seems to have to mark a woman’s career for her to be able to go out on a limb without having her credentials questioned.”
—Ruth Behar (b. 1956)