Coming in at number 3 of our top 100 Angels, Chuck Finley pitched 14 years with the California Angels. He is the all time Angels career leader in wins with 165. His 379 games started are also number one all time for the Angels. He is number one all time for the Angels for innings pitched at 2,675. Chuck Finley struck out 2,610 batters as an Angel, which places him at number two on the Angels all time strikeout list. In August 2009, he was inducted into the Angels Hall of Fame.
He was something of a rarity, as a left handed power pitcher. He combined a hard fastball with a devastating forkball. The forkball often dove into the dirt and could get past both the batter and the catcher. Because of this, Finley became the first pitcher in Major League history to record four strikeouts in an inning more than once. His first such inning came on May 12, 1999. The second came on August 15, 1999. He did it a third time with the Cleveland Indians on April 16, 2000.
Chuck Finley signed with the Indians before the 2000 season and he therefore missed out on winning that piece of metal in 2002. In his two and a half years with Cleveland he went 28 – 29 with a 4.59 ERA. Cleveland traded him to the Cardinals for Coco Crisp. He then finished out the 2002 season and his career going 7 – 4.
Personal Life
Chuck Finley married actress Tawny Kitaen in 1997. They have two daughters, Wynter and Raine. Finley filed for divorce in 2002 three days after Kitaen was charged with domestic violence for beating him with a stiletto heel. Kitaen claimed Chuck Finley was on steroids. She also accused him of heavy marijuana and alcohol use. Said Finley: “I can’t believe she left out the cross-dressing.” Finley’s third daughter, Briena Finley, was born in 2007 from another relationship.
Lmao @ “I cant believe she left out the cross dressing”. This makes me want to boot up the mvp baseball 2005 mod for the 1994 season. The 90’s Angel’s captured my fandom as a kid because all my other friends were dodger fans and once they traded nomo and piazza I was left with my favorites chuck and tim salmon, I appreciated the star players staying with the team and I’m so glad weaver and trout kept up that precedent.
Okay, I may not have been around for this discussion, but does fan-favorite and years with the Angels play into all of this ranking? Because I personally am trying to figure out how Fins ranks higher than Nolan Ryan as an Angels pitcher? I have a feeling a lot of emotional attachment went into this ranking. Because, objectively, I don’t think Fins was a better pitcher than Ryan – heck, I don’t think he was a better pitcher than Frank Tanana. Now, he may have been a better Angel than either Ryan or Tanana because he spent the vast majority of his career in Anaheim (kind of like Weaver). So, if that is part of the criteria, I am down. But if it is objective greatness kind of like a HOF analysis – then I think these may be a bit out of whack.
Rev Halofan took the laboring oar in compiling this list. It follows up a similar list he made several years ago on HH. I am sure sentimentality, length of tenure, and team records all factored into the ranking. After all, Nolan Ryan was a first ballot Hall of Famer with 98.79% of the vote while Chuck Finley fell off the ballot after getting only 2% of the vote his first year of eligibility.
If Ryan had gone into the Hall wearing an Angels cap things might have been different.
Okay I get it now. If this was Rev’s list, there is a lot of emotion factored in which is cool.
Certainly time time with the team matters. Look at his lifetime rankings on the team for counting stats. Vlad Guerrero was certainly better than Tim Salmon, but Tim Salmon’s time with the team, accumulated counting stats, dedication to the community, etc all factored into why Salmon ranks higher than a Hall of Famer too.
I’ll buy into that but we need to acknowledge the emotional component. This ranking factors in much more than on field performance.
I will add that Ryan pitched for the team as long as Weaver but it’s the emotional connection with Weaver that resulted in his having a higher ranking. It clearly was not on field performance as Ryan had 4 no-hitters with the Angels.
this countdown is sort of like a Beatles countdown where, once you find out what #3 is, you know #1 and #2.
Anyway, 34+ years later I’m still what-if-ing in my head. Lucas should have gotten Gedman out but there was another lefty in the pen, young Chuck Finley. What if Finley had come in instead?
We used to have some pretty good pitchers, some pretty good pitching staffs. Check out 1989, for example
Witt, Finley, Abbott, Blyleven, McCaskill. The highest FIP of those was Witt’s at 3.86. That’s a lot of aces. Witt was gone after that, replaced by Langston.
We have some fun planned going into numbers 2 and 1 so we don’t have to be “Captain Obvious” about this.
that sounds good to me!
What if Gene Mauch had left Witt in? What if Tony Armas hadn’t sprained his ankle in the 2nd inning? Or better yet, what if Doug DeCinces hadn’t swung at the very first pitch he saw in the bottom of the 9th after Steve Crawford intentionally walked Downing to load the bases?
Obviously I’ve completely gotten over that game so many years ago.
Rather like Macho Grande
that’s right. Leave Witt in. Or don’t hit Gedman! Crawford said he was just about pissing his pants, he was so nervous. DeCinces helped him out. I, too, am over that game and no longer remember the details like Wilfong doubling in Jones to tie the score. I’ve also forgotten that, at 5-2 with one out, I said to my wife “I can’t believe this, honey, I think we’re gonna win this!” and I’ve also forgotten that I bought my first VHS machine so I could tape Game 7, only to stop recording around the 2nd inning.
The Indians wanted Finley badly because if they were going to win a World Series, they were likely going to have to go through the Yankees in the playoffs, and with the Angels from 1995 through 1999, Finley made 15 starts against NYY and had a 9-2 record with a 2.60 ERA.
Definitely my favorite Angels pitcher, the rotation ace, a workhorse, and team leader through my childhood. He and Tim Salmon were the consisten bright spots through all those mediocre and buttercup 90s teams. So sad he left before the WS win!