Jim Palmer(II)
- Actor
Jim's mother relocated from New York to California following the death
of Jim's adoptive father. Jim was nine years old. His mother
subsequently remarried and moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, where Jim
attended high school. He excelled in football, baseball, and
basketball. Though offered a basketball scholarship at UCLA, he signed
with the Baltimore Orioles at age 18 and received a $50,000 signing
bonus. During his pitching career for the Orioles (1965-1984) he won
268 games and became the only pitcher to win a World Series game in
each of three different decades. He was voted the Cy Young Award three
times. In 1990 he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on the first
ballot. Despite all this, Jim's greatest fame may have come when,
beginning in the late 1970s, he appeared in a series of ads for Jockey
Underwear modeling various styles of briefs, including the "bikini"
variety. At the time, these ads were considered "daring" because of
their blatant display of "male beefcake." They certainly added a new
meaning to the term "pitcher's mound" and they helped to turn Jim into
an overnight sex symbol.
