He dreaded having to walk past the table of defensive linemen that included White, Ed “Too Tall” Jones and John Dutton, a trio of trash-talking big hitters that let the young players hear it. He screamed when he first looked at the finger bent sideways, but trainers calmly popped it in place, taped it to his ring finger and told him to return to the field.Īfter practice, Baldinger went to the cafeteria for lunch. Baldinger’s hand got caught on White’s jersey as White threw Baldinger’s hand to the side and his pinky came out of its socket. On one play, he lined up as a left guard against star defensive tackle Randy White. There’s a lot that comes with it.”īaldinger, now an analyst for NFL Network, was in the first session of two-a-day training camp practices with the Cowboys. At the same time, we also find ways to make people laugh about the situation and we find ways to make people comfortable about the situation. “What’s the ramifications? People are curious. “I think people are genuinely curious how you’ve lived with it,” said Lott. Uhhhh, can you, ummm, show your hand in the photo? Members of the club have gotten used to the photo requests, including a specific one if the player smiles and poses with an arm around the fan: “When I talk with young children, I tell them it makes a great bicycle turn signal,” Page said. Because of that, Page wrote a children’s book with his daughter called “Alan and His Perfectly Pointy, Impossibly Perpendicular Pinky.” When former Vikings great Alan Page - NFL Hall of Famer, associate justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom - talks to students, the kids are more interested in a left pinky finger that juts out horizontally. “They don’t recognize my face,” Muñoz said, “but they recognize my pinky.”Ĭhildren in particular take great interest in the damaged digits. Some of them - including the Hall of Famers - have become so well known for their peculiar injuries that it overshadows years of production on the field. It’s crazy.”Īll members of the club are familiar with the regular looks from across the room. Who knew back then in 1983 it would be such a popular thing? People love to see it and take pictures with it. “It’s like I’m some sort of official judge. “Everyone is trying to get in like, ‘Baldy, does this qualify?'” said former lineman Brian Baldinger, whose right pinky juts askew. It’s a you-know-it-when-you-see-it type thing. The shared experience bonds those in the mangled finger club, though admittance into the group is subjective. Muñoz, one of the greatest linemen to ever play the game, has perhaps the gnarliest finger of them all, a left pinky that’s permanently bent 90 degrees thanks to 185 games in the NFL. And pant pockets can be a real pain in the ass.īut it’s a welcoming club, something Lott learned from his good friend and fellow Hall of Famer Anthony Muñoz, the informal president of the group. Stares from across the room are frequent. Lott had joined an unofficial group of NFL players with mangled fingers bent every which way, and he learned what came along with membership. Hall of Famer Ronnie Lott injured his pinky finger in this 1985 game against the Cowboys.
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