This Year, Fingers Has Reason to Party

SAN DIEGO —  Last year when he didn’t get elected to the Hall of Fame, Rollie Fingers partied into the night. This year when he made it to Cooperstown, he didn’t get the chance.

Fingers on Tuesday night celebrated his election to the Hall of Fame with family and friends at a Mission Valley sports bar not far from San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, where he pitched for the Padres for four seasons in the middle of his 17-year career.

But he had to cut short the revelry to catch a plane for New York. “I have to leave in a half hour,” Fingers said.

Fingers wore a cap that sported a likeness of his trademark handlebar mustache and read, “Rollie Fingers Hall of Fame 1992.”

A similar party was held last year, when Fingers was first eligible for the ballot. But he still was upbeat despite falling 41 votes short of the 75 percent needed.

Said Fingers: “Last year I had it in the back of my mind that I wouldn’t get in because of the guys who were on the ballot: Gaylord Perry, Ferguson Jenkins, Rod Carew, Jim Bunning. There were a lot of guys on the ballot, and you can’t take everybody. It wasn’t a shoo-in for me at all, by no means. I wasn’t really expecting it, either.”

Fingers’ father, George, died in April.

“It was kind of hard,” Fingers said. “I wish he was here, but he knows.”

Fingers is the first pitcher in the Hall of Fame with a losing record (114-118) but wound up setting a record with 341 career saves.