Was trying to think who was the originator of wearing headphones while playing. It’s commonplace now, but I can’t remember the first time I saw someone do it.
Some other notables that I can think of:
Playing in socks --> Lyman Sheats
Headlamp --> Wendy Jankowitz
Gloves --> ?
Headphones --> ?
Towel --> ?
What no fur coat option??? Absurd.
Flashy pants?
I’m thinking Bob Matthews for gloves??
He’ll have to comment if he wore them in the 80’s. I think I remember Dave Stewart sporting them in the early 90’s.
I feel like I’m an “early adopter” for wearing headphones in competition, but certainly not the first. On a cursory search through old photos, 2004 is the earliest one I could find… Who wore em in the 90s ?
Yeah I definitely remember Dave wearing them way back when I first met him.
Am I remembering right that Dan Wilson wore headphones?
Time to comb through some Flipside archives trying to find a random picture so support this claim 
Its interesting that towels were such a dominant theme in the 90s, and NOBODY uses them now. I vividly remember Lyman walking around with that towel hanging off his belt loops. It was so popular that someone was making custom branded towels for Expo one year.
Backhand Pinball has some branded towels (more of a napkin cloth consistency), and there were a bunch of blue towels around at the Northwest show, so I don’t think they’re total extinct.
As far as I know, I’m the first and only person to wear baseball pants to state championship.
Who was the first to start fluttering the opposite side flipper to ‘micro nudge’ and slow down a ball on the other flipper? It seems like that is a relatively recent (last few years) thing, but I can’t remember where/who I saw doing this first.
Towel got replaced by the Zach “Shirtowel”
I saw it from either Cayle or Daniele, I think at IFPA @ Seattle
PAPA had towels in their backpack pre registration packages one year. Still have 2 that hubby and I got and hubby still uses his. So they’re still out there.
I wear gloves sometimes. I started wearing them originally because my palms would get sore (I guess from my stance leaning on the lock bar.) so I had weight lifting gloves with padding in the palms to help…I don’t wear them much anymore because I don’t compete as much as I used to.
I know Moo (Larry Scott) does the fluttering flipper thing and I’ve seen Shep do it but I don’t know who started it.
Phoebe
I always attribute it to Jason Werdrick. Even if he didn’t start it, he does it the best.