Favorite Player Stories...

[grenda12]

What do you and your favorite player have in common, that makes him your favorite?


Here’s mine…

My favorite player is White Sox catcher AJ Pierzynski #12.

I’ve been a fan of the White Sox since 1986. As I grew up playing sports, my jersey number has always been 12, as well as my lucky number. No matter what sport I played: softball, basketball, volleyball; 12 was the number I had to have.

When I first started playing softball; I started out in left-field and after awhile the coach moved me to catcher. Since that, I’ve always been a catcher through summer leagues, high school, and even college.

Pierzynski is a Polish name. My Paternal Grandmother’s maiden name was Pierzynski. Therefore, I am Polish!

Those are the main reasons why AJ Pierzynski is my favorite player.

[eisenreich8]

My favorite player past or present is Jim Eisenreich. He was burdened with Tourette Syndrome from childhood, and suffered with it throughout his youth, even while being a superb athlete in every sport (I even heard that from some of the kids he grew up with). He made the majors with the Twins, his symptoms got worse the more he tried to fight it, and one memorable (and sad) event happened to him at Fenway, when the crowd successfully jeered him out of the game.

He left baseball for two seasons, got the treatment he needed, and returned for better than 13 seasons as a dependable hitter, above-average fielder, and a fan favorite with KC, Philly, Florida and LAD. He played in two WS and won a championship with Florida in 1997.

He exudes class, professionalism, humility and strength to overcome adversity like few have. I have had the pleasure of meeting him twice over the years, and was there when he was presented with the Tony Conigliaro Award in 1991 at the Boston Baseball Writer's dinner.

He didn't play when I was a kid, or I would have done the same thing wearing his number. But, as a 40+ year old playing in a wood bat league, I wore #8 for 5 seasons in tribute to Jim.

ALWAYS looking for and collecting Jim Eisenreich items.

[eisenreich8]

Here's another cool story: When I was a kid, I grew up 5 doors down from Richie Hebner. He was one of 5 rough-and-tumble boys. Dad was nicknamed "Wild Bill" as he was a loud and cantankerous guy, and Mom was a quiet woman with a pronounced Irish brogue. Richie was years older than I so we did not "grow up" together, but all the years he played with the Pirates and Mets and so on he was home in the offseason and we'd see him around.

I used to deliver their paper after school, and if I was just a few minutes late getting it to them, "Wild Bill" would call my mother and yell "where's my paper!!??". He was pretty intimidating. When I'd get the paper to the house, Mom was usually on the front porch, and I'd apologize, and she'd say "don't worry, Dear, my husband's just like that". At 49, I still have paper route nightmares from those days.

The gravedigger stories are true. Richie would hand-dig graves in the offseason at the Jewish cemetery in West Roxbury where his dad was the superintendent. That's how Richie built up his power, not with PEDs.

Richie's brothers were an interesting lot. One umped my softball league, another played cards on my porch, the strories are many. Richie and "Walpole" Joe Morgan hung around the Boston suburbs a lot together and you'd run into them at one watering hole or another. Richie also owned a bar for a lot of years called the 3rd Base in South Norwood, Mass. where I spent many a dollar and brain cell.

[godwulf]

Matt Williams is my favorite player, all time, in addition to being one hell of a nice human being. In his active playing days, he was always the kind of guy who would do whatever it took to support a teammate.

One of my favorite Matty stories involves the Major League debut of Byung-Hyun Kim. It was at Shea Stadium, on May 29, 1999, and Kim, all of twenty years old, was about to face Edgardo Alfonzo, John Olerud and Mike Piazza in the ninth, with the Diamondbacks leading the Mets by a run. As the media reported:

"Before he could throw a pitch, Mets manager Bobby Valentine walked toward plate umpire Larry Poncino to protest the size of Kim's glove. It was clearly a ploy to unnerve Kim, who had no idea what was happening. Before Valentine could launch a protest, Matt Williams met him and told him in no uncertain terms to leave the kid alone."

What Matty actually said was, "Bobby, get your f***ing ass back in the dugout where it belongs." And Bobby did so, without a word.

[ahuff]

My favorite player is Michael Barrett . . . we both dislike AJ Pierzynski.

Just joking.