Let's start with the lineup. I started really following baseball from 1987 onward, with the emergence of the Bash Brothers captivating my attention and filled my room with posters, I still hate Kirk Gibson to this day, and lost a bet to my 9th grade English teacher on the 1990 World Series. At least the A's got one in 1989 which was overshadowed by the earthquake.
In the summer of 1990, before the days of streaming video, social media, and interleague play, I was really only exposed to American League baseball growing up in a Seattle suburb, so when I began flipping channels during the dog days of August, I came across an Atlanta Braves baseball game on TBS. My dad was a huge Milwaukee Braves fan so I started following Atlanta closely and was thrilled to discover a whole different world of baseball.
Next season Atlanta turned things around dramatically, in a worst to first Cinderella season, I became even more engrossed watching National League playoff baseball. Again, it was an entirely different world of baseball, and most of these players I knew strictly from watching the All-Star game that summer in Toronto.
One of the first NL players I began following was a young slugger from Houston named Jeff Bagwell who went on to earn NL Rookie of the Year in 1991. His quirky stance amazed me that he could actually hit a baseball with one of the most unorthodox batting stances I've ever seen. At one point, I had over 1,000 different Bagwell cards and was thrilled with his election to the baseball HOF in 2017. Well deserved Baggy!