Player Profile: Mike Armstrong

I have ten cards of Mike Armstrong. This one is from 1985 Donruss.

Playing career: Mike Armstrong pitched for the Padres, Royals, Yankees and Indians from 1980 to 1987, winning 19 games and saving 11.

My memories: Don’t remember his playing career, but I remembered him from a famous quote where the Royals manager calls the bullpen and asks the bullpen coach of the two pitchers warming up, Mike Armstrong and Bill Castro, “Which one looks better?” to which the coach replied, “They’re both ugly.”  When looking up the quote to make sure Armstrong was one of the pitchers I came across this great old SportsIllustrated article written by the late Dan Quisenberry comparing bullpens across the major leagues. I miss fun behind-the-scenes writing by baseball players like you used to see a lot of in the 1980s. Are there any funny active players today like Quisenberry was a generation ago?

Where he is now: He is a retired construction worker who as of 2006 was still pitching in a wooden bat league in Georgia.

Google Autocomplete results: He is third when you type Mike Ar, between Mike Arrington, founder of the blog TechCrunch, and Mike Arteaga’s Fitness, a gym chain in upstate New York. The baseball player is fourth when you google Mike Armstrong, with the preceding results for a comedian and a Washington state legislator.

Coming up next: The next profile will be Larry Arndt.