Your favorite player growing up

My favorite player was Ken Griffey Jr. I loved his swing. When he would pull a homer it just looked perfect. I also liked his great fielding. He was so exciting to watch.

I got to see him hit a homer at Tiger Stadium in 1999 to left center by the flag pole. I am a Tigers fan but I sure was excited to see him hit one.

Griffey robbing a homer at Tiger Stadium. One of my favorite highlights of his.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URAuj4SAoYs

I moved from California to Washington in 1989, and watching Griffey's career was one of my greatest joys in this game! He was truly "The Natural"!

Fred Lynn. I also played center for our Little League Red Sox in 1975, and that magical season for Boston created a life-long Red Sox fan. I was devastated when the Red Sox traded him for a washed up Joe Rudi and what was left of Frank Tanana's fastball.
Although a steady contributor after the trade, Lynn was never quite the same upon leaving Fenway either.
Thanks a lot, Haywood Sullivan.

My favorite player was Ken Griffey Jr. I loved his swing. When he would pull a homer it just looked perfect. I also liked his great fielding. He was so exciting to watch.

I got to see him hit a homer at Tiger Stadium in 1999 to left center by the flag pole. I am a Tigers fan but I sure was excited to see him hit one.

Griffey robbing a homer at Tiger Stadium. One of my favorite highlights of his.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URAuj4SAoYs

I was at that game with my daughter, just so we could see him play. I love how Buhner started to celebrate and then duck to avoid the throw.

A CF for the 1969 Cubs by the name Jim Qualls because he broke up Tom Seaver's perfect game. The previous night CF Don Young botched 2 flyballs in the bottom of the 9th to help blow a 3-1 lead for Fergie Jenkins against the Mets. (Pretty much the end of Young's career while Qualls floated around a couple years doing nothing)The Cubs brought up another CF later that year, but Durocher hated him and his afro. Never got a fair chance with the Cubs His name was Oscar Gamble.

Carl Yastrzemski -

I'm a LIFE LONG CUBS fan from the north side of Chicago, BUT my dad is a White Sox fan and mom was the Cubs fan.

I picked Carl because my vote for favorite Cub or WS is divided by 50 (2 rosters). Yaz had that great '67 season while I was making the local Boys Little League travelling team as a Left Fielder. I wanted to play the game just like Yaz. I loved his SWEET swing and following the '67 Red Sox was so counter culture in Chgo.

I got his Rookie Card in a gum pack from Topps in 1960 AND I still have it today. My dad took me to a White Sox twin bill in 1967. Yaz did not disappoint. He homered off John Buzhardt ( a trade from the Cubs to the Sox ) and we were two of only a couple thousand fans that bothered to see that double header.

I still get a thrill thinking about those two games and that great Red Sox season. We never had great seasons from the Cubs (but we had great fun). So, rooting for an underdog (like the '67 Red Sox) and seeing them actually get to the World Series was uplifting.

Yep, It's YAZ!!! He's the Man!!!

BTW, if I can add a favorite player I saw after growing up, it would be Mariano Rivera. What a fabulous pitcher, and since he worked 60 games a season and pitched for almost 20 years, and I'm a Yankee fan, I saw a lot of him on TV for almost two decades.
He had pinpoint control, that great cutter, and a terrific four-seam fastball, too, which not everybody seems to realize that he had.
His fastball, IMHO, actually functioned as his off speed pitch—only in this case a little faster rather than a little slower than the main pitch. The hitter would be all focused on that cutter, and then in comes the fastball with a little extra zip and the hitter can't catch up with it.
The fastball was often his strikeout pitch. Rivera would get two strikes on a batter, then throw a fastball almost down the middle and right at the top of the strike zone. It's going 95 but must have looked like a watermelon to the hitter after all those darn cutters in on his hands. Maybe the hitter swings and misses. Maybe he manages to foul it off. If he fouls it, then next fastball comes in, in the exact same location, but three inches higher. This one's definitely a ball, but it looks to the hitter just like the last pitch, so he swings again. If manages to catch a piece of it, the next pitch comes in, 3 inches higher still. This one is REALLY high, but the hitter has been completely set up. He think's he's locked in, and he swings hard, but there's no way he's even touching this pitch. Three strikes! Yer out!
I must have seen this sequence at least fifty times. It was amazing to watch. I can't remember ever seeing it fail. And it would have been very dangerous without that pinpoint control.
Mo's career ERA+ is 205, by far the highest in baseball history. There's a reason for that.

As a kid growing up in the Greater LA area in the 70's, one would guess that I became a Dodger fan. But as it happened, my stepfather was an ardent Angels fan, and as such, I chose the Halo's. Of course, they were pretty lousy then, and when I first began to follow baseball with interest, the team which captured my imagination was the Pittsburgh Pirates. And why not? As a pre-teen, would you rather be a Pirate or a Dodger?

So at maybe 10-11 years old, with a new and burgeoning interest in baseball, I remember watching a couple playoff games on TV, and the guy I loved to watch hit was Willie Stargell. That hitched windmill was quite distinctive, and when he got hold of one, he gave it a ride!

My personal Willie Stargell story is a bit embarrassing and actually involves Dave Parker. One day, I was about 11 years old, my stepfather took me to Dodger Stadium for an evening game against my new team, the Pirates. We went early, and I was hopeful that I might get Willie Stargell to sign my glove. Pre-game, I ventured down to the first level railing out past first base, where I see a big black guy in a Pirates uniform warming up, and yell, "Hey Willie!" a few times. After a couple ball tosses, Dave Parker passively glances my way, and replies, " I ain't Willie, so I ain't gonna sign." Oops! I didn't get the autograph, but I did see both Parker and Stargell homer in a Pirates win.

Big Dave Winfield. I started really getting into baseball as he signed as a big free agent with the Yanks in 81. I collected all his baseball cards which back then was easy to do since there were probably only 15 or 20. I don't think there was a player in the history of the game who swung so hard that he lost his balance and fell on his ass on home plate. That's commitment!!

Always hated that he was called Mr May and was happy when he finally came through in the World Series for the Jays in 92. I was there on the last day of the season in 1984 when he and Mattingly were tied for the batting title, Mattingly won unfortunately. Someone get Dave's 1984 NYY .340 BA card in the ATGs already!

Gil Hodges was my favorite player, as a kid, growing up in Southern California.

You can't imagine the thrill in 1957, when we first heard the grumblings about the Dodgers moving to Los Angeles.

I wasn't a Brooklyn Dodger fan, but when they moved here, it was like a dream come true, for an eight year old.
We would finally have our own team, to follow. No more having to follow a St. Louis Cardinal team, which was the closest, but seemed like a whole country, away.

Gil, was my instant hero. I knew his best years were spent in Brooklyn, but he gave me a childhood of baseball memories.

When the Dodgers traded him in 1961, I was crushed. I still followed him with the Mets, then managing the Senators and finally managing the Miracle Mets to the World Series victory in 1969.

I still can't fathom why he is not in the Hall of Fame. I won't travel back to the Hall, until the Vets vote him in, like he should have been, years ago! It seems I am destined not to go back to Cooperstown and that's is a shame on them!

Roberto Clemente, then Willie Stargell.

When does growing up end?