Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Aristotle once said that envy is paying at
Speaker 1: the good fortune of others. Seeing someone with something we
Speaker 1: want doesn't instill good feelings within us. It breeds resentment
Speaker 1: and anger, and it can make us act out in
Speaker 1: unbecoming ways. Roland Roly Fingers didn't know that he was
Speaker 1: jealous when he caught a glimpse of Reggie Jackson walking
Speaker 1: onto the field in two fingers in. Jackson played for
Speaker 1: the Oakland Athletics baseball team as pitcher and outfielder, respectively.
Speaker 1: Jackson had arrived at spring training that year sporting a
Speaker 1: brand new mustache, a blatant act of rebellion against the
Speaker 1: unwritten policy that forbade players from growing facial hair. When
Speaker 1: it became clear that Jackson wanted to only stand out
Speaker 1: apart from the rest of the crowd, Fingers and a
Speaker 1: few other players thought that they'd play a little prank
Speaker 1: on him. He and his teammates, like Jim Catfish Hunter,
Speaker 1: grew their own mustaches too. Now, what they expected was
Speaker 1: that the A's manager, Dick Williams would tell everyone to
Speaker 1: shave them off, including Jackson. Williams was a conservative man who,
Speaker 1: along with other managers, believed that players should be clean
Speaker 1: shaven at all times. Instead, team owner Charlie Finley got
Speaker 1: wind of what Fingers was doing. He thought the small
Speaker 1: rebellion would be a great way to draw crowds out
Speaker 1: to the stadium to see all those mustachioed men playing ball.
Speaker 1: Finley even offered a three incentive for any player sporting
Speaker 1: a mustache or beard by opening day, which happily paid
Speaker 1: after Fingers ran to the mound wearing what would become
Speaker 1: his trademark look, an epic handlebar mustache, and just like that,
Speaker 1: the picture had become a member of the Oakland A's
Speaker 1: infamous mustache Gang. What Finley hadn't counted on was Fingers
Speaker 1: actually liking his facial hair. Raleigh, like many athletes, was
Speaker 1: a superstitious fellow. From the first pitch that season, the
Speaker 1: A's started winning games, so there was no way the
Speaker 1: mustache was coming off, and as long as they were winning,
Speaker 1: Williams and Finley didn't care whether their players wore a
Speaker 1: pencil mustache, a goatee, or a big white beard like
Speaker 1: Santa Claus Heck. Finley even grew one himself. Fingers played
Speaker 1: for the A's for another four years, winning three World
Speaker 1: Series championships and earning an m v P Award. Then
Speaker 1: he signed with the San Diego Padres, playing from nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy seven to nineteen eighty before moving to the Milwaukee Brewers. Sadly,
Speaker 1: a series of injuries and health setbacks kept Fingers out
Speaker 1: of his nineteen eighty three season with the Brewers, and
Speaker 1: he needed back surgery to remove a hernie aided disc
Speaker 1: the year after that, but he did eventually return to
Speaker 1: the pitcher's mound almost as good as new. The Brewers
Speaker 1: released him in nineteen eighty five, when he was thirty
Speaker 1: nine years old. Now, for most players, that would have
Speaker 1: been the end of their professional careers, but Fingers still
Speaker 1: had some fight left in him. Cincinnati Red's manager Pete
Speaker 1: Rose saw that fight and tried to get him to
Speaker 1: sign on with him. There was just one catch, a
Speaker 1: rule that had come from the team's owner, Marge Shot,
Speaker 1: which every player was forced to obey. Shots beloved St.
Speaker 1: Bernard SHOTSI was the only living thing allowed on the
Speaker 1: field to have hair anywhere but the top of its head.
Speaker 1: Any player working for her was required to shave their
Speaker 1: facial hair if they wanted to put on a Red's uniform.
Speaker 1: Raleigh Fingers didn't much care for shots rule. By two
Speaker 1: he'd become the first pitcher to reach three hundred saves,
Speaker 1: and he was just over six years away from being
Speaker 1: inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Yet, despite his
Speaker 1: impressive career, many fans today remember him for just one
Speaker 1: decision that changed his entire life. Fingers was all set
Speaker 1: to join the Reds in six but the blanket policy
Speaker 1: about no facial hair just didn't sit well with him.
Speaker 1: He got on the phone with the general manager to
Speaker 1: work out a deal, but unfortunately Shot wouldn't budge, and
Speaker 1: if Fingers hoped to play ball, he had to follow
Speaker 1: the rule. The mustache had to go. Given no other option,
Speaker 1: Fingers put his foot down for good. He chose his
Speaker 1: mustache over his career, officially retiring from professional baseball in
Speaker 1: just one family was responsible for all nineties. Seven lighthouses
Speaker 1: built along the coast of Scotland between seventeen ninety and ninety.
Speaker 1: Today those Scottish lighthouses are automated. The weather beaten lighthouse
Speaker 1: keepers were replaced with computers, Tungsten bulbs were swapped out
Speaker 1: for l ed's. It was the process of change that
Speaker 1: comes for everything from the past as new minds experiment
Speaker 1: with past achievements. But it's still a story worth telling,
Speaker 1: in part because, like many ambitious and important projects, it
Speaker 1: all started with a tragedy. That's when Robert was just
Speaker 1: a boy and his father and uncle had died. They
Speaker 1: were merchants from Glasgow and they made their living shipping
Speaker 1: goods across the Atlantic on a trip to the island
Speaker 1: of St Kitts, though the two men got sick when
Speaker 1: they died. They left Robert and his mother at home
Speaker 1: in Scotland to make do. Life was hard, but Robert
Speaker 1: eventually met the man who would marry his mother and
Speaker 1: light his way forward. He was a tinsmith, a skilled
Speaker 1: mechanic and crucially a lampmaker, and he had just been
Speaker 1: selected as the engineer for the new Northern Lighthouse Board.
Speaker 1: So young Robert became engineer's assistant. That meant he had
Speaker 1: a lot of learning to do, but he took to
Speaker 1: the rocky crags of the Scottish coast and the calculations
Speaker 1: of stone and light like no one had expected. He
Speaker 1: was an excellent assistant, and in just a few short
Speaker 1: years he was on the job supervising the construction of
Speaker 1: lighthouses that his stepfather was designing. Engineering became his trade too.
Speaker 1: Maybe Robert thought about the death of his father when
Speaker 1: he stood on a cliff's edge and looked out over
Speaker 1: the ocean. The rocks and reefs off Scotland's coast had
Speaker 1: taken thousands of lives. In one spot east of Dundee,
Speaker 1: about six ships were wrecked every winter on an underwater
Speaker 1: shelf of sandstone. It was known as Bell Rock, probably
Speaker 1: because in the hundreds a warning bell had been built,
Speaker 1: but it didn't last, and Robert knew that nothing protected
Speaker 1: ships in that spot. Now people were losing their lives
Speaker 1: and their livelihoods there every year. Generations of children were
Speaker 1: being orphaned by the sandstone hazards. So he got to
Speaker 1: work building his most ambitious project. In fact, the project
Speaker 1: was so difficult and so expensive that at first the
Speaker 1: Northern Lighthouse Board thought it was impossible, but when the
Speaker 1: sixty four gun warship HMS Yorke went down on that
Speaker 1: spot and all four members of the crew were lost
Speaker 1: in the raging breakers that put the project into motion.
Speaker 1: They brought on one of the most esteemed engineers of
Speaker 1: the day, John Renny, to help with a design, while
Speaker 1: Roberts and his building crew tackled the construction work. And
Speaker 1: it was a heroic challenge, not least because they could
Speaker 1: only work for a few hours each day at low
Speaker 1: tide before the waters swept in and reminded them that
Speaker 1: they were building their tower on a watery graveyard. But
Speaker 1: after four years the work was done. It's an incredible
Speaker 1: feat and it still stands today, the oldest sea washed
Speaker 1: tower in existence, built down into the partially submerged reef.
Speaker 1: It was a kind of wonder of the modern world.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just lighthouses that Robert engineered, though over time
Speaker 1: he came to design and build bridges, roads and railways too,
Speaker 1: But it was his inventions of new kinds of lights
Speaker 1: for lighthouses that earned him the most respect. He even
Speaker 1: got a medal from the King of the Netherlands for that,
Speaker 1: and that set the tone for the family. Robert's three
Speaker 1: us followed in his footsteps. They became a whole family
Speaker 1: of engineers, and in the years that followed, from seventeen
Speaker 1: ninety all the way up to nineteen forty eight, members
Speaker 1: of the family became engineers, experimented with new technologies, and
Speaker 1: built the nineties seven lighthouses that still like the North
Speaker 1: Sea and the Northern Atlantic. There are a few interesting
Speaker 1: things about that, though, not least that the family saw
Speaker 1: their work first and foremost as a duty to the nation.
Speaker 1: Rather than taking on patents on their inventions, they offered
Speaker 1: them to the world, without expecting anything in return, without
Speaker 1: trying to turn their most helpful contributions into a new
Speaker 1: tide of wealth crashing into their personal coffers. But not
Speaker 1: everyone in the family was equally ready for the family business.
Speaker 1: One man who was named after that original Robert, found
Speaker 1: that it was the adventure on the high seas and
Speaker 1: the drama of life and death on the open ocean
Speaker 1: that set him a light. And in fact, in the
Speaker 1: years that his family trained him to be an engineer,
Speaker 1: he learned something altogether different. What I gleaned I am
Speaker 1: sure I do not know, he said, but he had
Speaker 1: already determined to be something else. He loved the art
Speaker 1: of words, and he said that everything he learned from
Speaker 1: hardened sailors and genius technicians interested me only as properties
Speaker 1: for some possible romance, or as words to add to
Speaker 1: my vocabulary. We can be grateful for all of that learning, though,
Speaker 1: the stormy seas and craggy rocks of the Scottish coast
Speaker 1: became the setting for some of Scottish literature's most beloved stories.
Speaker 1: When that Robert put his pen to paper, he set
Speaker 1: tales on scotland stormy coasts and engineered plots that would
Speaker 1: light the way for the coming generations of adventure seekers
Speaker 1: with a monumental achievement that rings down through the years,
Speaker 1: like the lighthouse on Bell Rock. It was the second
Speaker 1: Roberts who put the family name in lights when he
Speaker 1: invented a crew of Wily Brigands in the wake of
Speaker 1: his father's journey to the Caribbean, and Robert Lewis Stevenson
Speaker 1: became known as the author of the most famous story
Speaker 1: of piracy and adventure in the English language, Jem Treasure Island.
Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership
Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television
Speaker 1: show and you can learn all about it over at
Speaker 1: the World of Lore dot com. And until next time,
Speaker 1: stay curious. Yeah,