This story was excerpted from Martín Gallegos' A's Beat newsletter. To read the full story, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

Rehabbing from an elbow issue that has kept him out of action since Spring Training has given A’s right-hander Brent Honeywell Jr. a chance to get closely acquainted with the Oakland Coliseum and all its history.

When the A’s have gone out for road trips this season, Honeywell has remained in Oakland to work his way back from injury. Roaming around the building before and after workouts, he’s come across the many nods to the historic ballclubs of years past that have come before him. The wall of fame on the lower concourse. The framed plaques of A’s legends on the walkway down to the field. The retired numbers featured high above the outfield atop Mt. Davis.

So when the A’s hosted a reunion over the weekend for the 1972 Swingin’ A’s team that brought Oakland its first World Series title, there was no current A’s player more excited about the event than Honeywell. Watching the pregame ceremony from the dugout, Honeywell got his chance to rub shoulders with some of baseball’s all-time greats.

“I shook Rollie Fingers’ hand. I shook Vida Blue’s hand and introduced myself. It was a cool moment,” Honeywell said. “There’s levels, and then there’s that. Something that I’ll definitely always remember and tell people about.”

Figuring out a way to meet Blue was of the utmost importance. While the 27-year-old Honeywell is too young to have watched the legendary left-hander in action, he knew plenty about Blue, whose career coincided with his uncle Mike Marshall, the 1974 Cy Young Award winner and two-time All-Star who passed along how to throw his famed screwball to his nephew.

Blue, of course, remains one of the most beloved players in A’s history. He went 209-161 with a 3.27 ERA across 17 big league seasons. Nine of those years were spent with Oakland, with whom he went 124-86 with a 2.95 ERA. Blue’s 36.2 fWAR and 1,315 strikeouts are tops among A's hurlers in the Oakland era, and he was elected to the A's Hall of Fame in 2019.

Shortly after the conclusion of the pregame ceremony, Honeywell managed to get Blue’s attention for a quick chat.

“That guy, a lot of people like to say, ‘Oh, guys back then didn’t throw all that hard.’ But he used to throw gas back in the day,” Honeywell said of Blue. “I go out every day and I see them dudes up on top of Mt. Davis out there, and it’s a cool thing to shake hands with a couple of them.”