Lundquist sports throwback look
Fans know power-hitting outfielder for his Rollie Fingers moustache and solid work ethic
Brock Lundquist plays like your standard corner outfielder but he looks like Rollie Fingers.
The 21-year-old Lundquist, one of the current Toronto Blue Jays draft class who joined the Vancouver Canadians last week, fashions an oldschool, handlebar moustache that prompts thoughts of Fingers, the Oakland A’s all-star closer from the 1970s who registered 341 saves over his 17 years in the bigs but is better known for his facial hair.
“Everybody kept calling me Rollie Fingers. I didn’t know who he was,” admitted Lundquist, a native of Fountain Valley, Calif. who, we should point out, was born four years after Fingers entered the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1992.
“I looked him up online and saw a whole bunch of pictures of the moustache … a spectacular moustache.
“Every day I hear someone call me Rollie Fingers. Right when I got here, I was approached by someone: ‘Hey, Rollie Fingers ... what’s up?’ ”
Lundquist started growing the ’stache as part of a Movember team campaign with his NCAA squad, the Long Beach State Dirtbags. It was his first attempt.
He shaved it off for Christmas, but started regrowing it in early January. Many of his Dirtbag teammates did the same, to a point where Long Beach State held a Moustache Sunday promotion for the March 9 game against Utah Valley. Fans with moustaches received general admission tickets at a discount.
Lundquist said his family and friends are fans of the moustache, so it may have some staying power.
“I get a little moustache wax in there and keep it twirled up,” Lundquist said.
The Blue Jays drafted Lundquist in the sixth round earlier this month, with hopes he can one day bring a little pop into the middle of the order. The left-hand hitting Lundquist “is physically well put together and has some raw power in his 6-foot, 210-pound frame,” according to his Baseball America pre-draft scouting report, but also “struggled to get to it consistently in games,” the publication added.
In 164 games over his three years with the Dirtbags, he hit .294 with 10 home runs and 81 runs batted in.
As a youngster, he studied the swing of Barry Bonds.
Lundquist got off to a hot start with Vancouver, hitting .500 (7-for-14) with four RBIs in his first five games.
“I have to compete my butt off, and come to the field ready to get to work every day,” Lundquist said of what he has to do to move up the ladder from Vancouver, Toronto’s short-season, single-A affiliate in the Northwest League.
“I have to get as much out of it as I can and work hard.”
Being drafted by the Blue Jays and assigned to Vancouver made Lundquist a teammate once again with catcher Riley Adams, the University of San Diego product he lined up alongside two summers ago with the La Crosse Loggers, a Wisconsin team in the college all-star Northwoods League.
As well, Lundquist and Long Beach State put an end to Kacy Clemens’ campaign when they beat Texas in an NCAA regional contest earlier this month. Long Beach State lost to Cal State Fullerton in the Super Regional.
“It’s cool because I already knew him coming into here,” Lundquist said of Clemens, a Vancouver first baseman.
“A couple of weeks back, I’d get on first base and we’d have conversations. I saw he got drafted to the same team and I was pretty excited. Good guy, super approachable.”
“Everybody kept calling me Rollie Fingers. I didn’t know who he was. I looked him up online and saw a whole bunch of pictures of the moustache ...” — Brock Lundquist