The Futility Infielder

Two of the fine bloggers at All-Baseball.com have decided to leave the fold and join forces. Rich Lederer of Rich's Weekend Baseball Beat and Bryan Smith of Wait Til Next Year are merging their blogs into a new site called The Baseball Analysts (www.baseballanalysts.com). According to their press release, the site will be "devoted to examining the game's past, present, and future," which makes sense since Lederer has done some excellent historical work, including his big dig through the Bill James Baseball Abstract series, and Smith is devoted to covering top prospects.

This week, Lederer has a three-part series in which he polled baseball writers of varying renown to ask "Who Was Your Favorite Player Growing Up?" in a five-question format:

1. Who was your favorite player when you were growing up? 2. Why? 3. What do you most remember about that player? 4. Did you ever come into contact with him? 5. Do you have any special memorabilia (baseball card, autograph, etc.)?

Part one ran yesterday. Part two, which features yours truly in a star-studded lineup that includes Peter Gammons, Bill James and Rob Neyer (hooray for alphabetical placement) as well as a few of my BP colleagues, runs today. And as you might guess, part three will air tomorrow.

I had a difficult time settling on my answer, offering no fewer than four Dodgers from my youth: Davey Lopes (whom ESPN's Eric Neel named as his fave), Ron Cey, Pedro Guerrero, and Fernando Valenzuela. Ultimately I settled on Fernando, figuring that the bobblehead and the retro jersey I have of his seal the deal (in honor of this, I christened the new hard drive I installed yesterday Fernandomania; my laptop is Mendoza Line Drive).

I enjoyed that particular stroll down memory lane, particularly in thinking about the Dodgers' 1981 World Championship. I suspect, once you read some of the responses that Rich's questions elicited, that you'll find some fond memories there too.