Hall of Fame
A native of Paducah, Ky., Steve Finley becomes the first Saluki baseball player to enter the Missouri Valley Conference’s Hall of Fame and is the seventh overall inductee for Southern Illinois University.
A first-team All-Missouri Valley Conference choice in 1986 and 1987 and a third-team All-American selection in 1986, he was also a member of the 1986 Team USA squad that won a bronze medal during international competition in the Netherlands.
A member of SIU’s Hall of Fame, Finley still ranks among the Salukis’ career leaders in runs scored (3rd, 175), hits (10th, 246), triples (T-7th, 13), total bases (T-7th, 352) and stolen bases (T-2nd, 69).
In 1986, Finley was drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the 11th round but did not sign.
Finley made his Major League debut with Baltimore on April 3, 1989.
He played for eight different Major League Baseball organizations, including the Baltimore Orioles (1989-90), Houston Astros (1991-94), San Diego Padres (1995-98), Arizona Diamondbacks (1999-2004), Los Angeles Dodgers (2004), Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (2005), San Francisco Giants (2006) and Colorado Rockies (2007).
Throughout his 19-year MLB career, he was a two-time Major League Baseball All-Star selection (1997 and 2000), a five-time Gold Glove Award winner (1995, 1996, 1999, 2000 and 2004) and a World Series champion (2001, with Arizona).
In 2006, at the age of 41, Finley became the oldest player ever to play more than 100 games in center field.
He played his last Major League game on June 3, 2007. At the time of his release, he was first in triples (124), third in games (2,583) and at-bats (9,397), fourth in hits (2,548), seventh in runs (1,443), eighth in total bases (4,157), and ninth in doubles (449) and stolen bases (320) among all active players. He also had the fourth-most center field appearances in Major League history and was the 6th-oldest player in the National League.
Finley’s career numbers include a .271 batting average, 301 home runs, 2,548 hits and 1,167 runs batted in.
He currently resides in San Diego, Calif., where he works in business development for Apheta and GS Levine Insurance Services, Inc.