Honorable mentions go to Torry Holt's middle finger that is bent at a 45 degree angle (Photo courtesy of The Athletic).
There’s a unique club in the NFL that is highly exclusive and a little secretive: the disfigured pinkies club. How does someone become a member? Not with pinky promises, that’s for sure. According to Ronnie Lott, “perks” of membership include questions, stares, photo requests, and trouble with pants pockets.
To be clear, we aren’t mocking these fingies; these are the signs of the sacrifices that these dedicated NFL players make when they sacrifice life and limb on the gridiron. If seeing body parts bend in nature-defying ways bothers you, this might not be the right read for you. Want to read another one of my less-gruesome works of art? Find them here!
I am discussing seven members with mangled metacarpals. Did I forget a key member? Let me know in the comment section below!
The 7 NFL Pinkies
We won’t be rating these seven pinkies on any particular scale. There aren’t bonus points for being able to bend your phalange more degrees in an unnatural direction or having more bumps in the joints. All funky little fingers are welcome.
Honorable mentions go to Michael Strahan, who’s pinky is fine but has a left ring finger that bends 90 degrees.
Alan Page
The former Minnesota Supreme Court judge rocked his funky finger in photos on the bench all the time. What a cool flex! Page is not ashamed of where he came from; he owns it.
When the former defensive linemen visited students in schools (because he’s philanthropic like that), his fingies would garner a lot of attention, so he decided to write about it. The former judge went so far as to write a children’s book with his daughter, called “Alan and His Perfectly Pointy, Impossibly Perpendicular Pinky.”
Making lemonade out of lemons. Alan Page also tells the kids that it makes a great bike signal – bike safety!
Anthony Muñoz
Muñoz is the unofficial president of the NFL players with mangled fingers group; he can also be the president of our pinky one as well. Besides his leadership skills, Anthony has a left pinky that is permanently bent 90 degrees.
The offensive tackle attributes his finger injuries to blocking opponents with a hand-focused tackling style taught since the 1980s that required players to put their hands inside.
Anthony Muñoz is happy with his pinky as is; it makes a great conversation starter. The surgery that would fix most of these men’s hands would straighten them out but would also not allow their pinkies to bend. In Anthony’s case (and many of the other men’s), the pinky doesn’t hurt. As the OT said, he can wrap it around his golf clubs and weights, so he’s good.
Muñoz experienced some other hand-related issues that men with mangled hands outside of the Pinkies Club often have. His right ring finger is bent and knotted. This required Anthony to get a ring large enough to get over the phalange’s deformities; unfortunately, it made it easy to slip off his hand as well. NFL problems.
Brian Baldinger
If Anthony Muñoz is the president of the hand club (and the pinky one by proxy), then Brian is the judge. He is the gatekeeper of f***ked-up hands. You would think it would be our resident judge, Alan Page, who would make the calls. But here we are.
After bending his finger going against defensive lineman Randy White in the 1980s, Baldinger dislocated his pinky. The trainers popped it back into place, taped it, and told him to get back out there.
Brian Baldinger’s suggestion for people in his boat who live in places that get cold in the winter? Toss the gloves and opt for mittens. And he’s an NFL analyst, and as we know, they’re always right.
Larry McCarren
Larry McCarren has a very angled pinky. He points out that once you dislocate your finger, it’ll keep happening. It’s not exactly the largest, most emergent body part, so it was easy for players and trainers alike to ignore the injuries. McCarren has his phalanges and his brain affected by football because he can’t remember if he sprained them monthly or weekly. Either way, it’s still a lot in his 12 seasons.
The center let us know that sometimes the finger stops popping back in. The angle of the sportscaster’s pinky proves that.
Roger Staubach
Roger Staubach’s pinky is so unique that it apparently required a hand statue. Staubach was a recurrent pinky breaker, including in the 1978 Super Bowl. In the following off-season, Roger did get surgery to mend his finger. All he had to do was give his pinky a six-week break.
The quarterback couldn’t do it. He participated in the Dallas Cowboys’s winter pick-up basketball games and took a ball to the splint. The splint went flying, and so did any chance that Roger would have a normal pinky.
If we’re going to be honest, though, Staubach wasn’t worried much about protecting any part of his body. It definitely has shown post-retirement. It’s a unique choice to make.
Rondale Moore
Rondale Moore is on this list because his pinky is pointing in the wrong direction from an unknown injury. This is particularly notable because this is the most recent phalange injury in 2023 (by, like, 20 years).
Moore struggled with many injuries in the 2022–2023 season, including his pinky. He has continued to play for the Arizona Cardinals, pinky and all. There haven’t been any updates, but hopefully his metacarpal situation got straightened out.
Ronnie Lott
It’s kind of unbelievable how many gruesome photos there are of Ronnie Lott’s finger injury, with the red stuff and all. It’s even a bit much for me and my articles. Lott’s finger was bent and squirting blood after he got it stuck in his opponent’s helmet and shoulder pad in 1985.
A week after his pinkies’ worst nightmare, Ronnie taped up his finger and got on the gridiron for a playoff game. That was not a positive long-term solution for safety, and he had to decide between a pinky-saving surgery that would interfere with his 1986 surgery or lop it off. So partial amputation it was.
Lott was devastated by his phalange journey. Immediately after the surgery, he felt like his finger looked like ET’s head. Three weeks later, when his cast was removed, he felt his pinky was the ugliest thing he had ever seen. The grief associated with losing his finger was very real for the former NFL player.
Ronnie Lott delivered a quote regarding the loss of his finger that is so crucial for us all to remember: “We are losing the compassionate side of sports. We’re becoming gladiators. If I ever become a coach, I hope I never lose sight of the fact that players are people. They feel, they have emotions.”
