Question for the Ages: Who’s Your Least Favorite Player? (Part 1)

Ryan Braun went from one of MLB's most-liked players to one of the most disliked. (via Steve Paluch)

Ryan Braun went from one of MLB’s most-liked players to one of the most disliked. (via Steve Paluch)

On May 20, 2006, in the second inning of an interleague game between the rival teams from Chicago, Cubs catcher Michael Barrett became the immediate envy and beloved proxy of folks throughout baseball when his right fist assumed a linear trajectory and crashed forthwith into the left cheek of A.J. Pierzynski. Among baseball’s most disliked players—a man, indeed, about whom White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen once observed, “If you play against him, you hate him. If you play with him, you hate him a little less” – the White Sox catcher had just barreled into Barrett at home plate and punctuated his run-scoring achievement by slapping the plate with a haughty palm, a pair of actions that underscored Pierzynski’s reputation and served as a personal invitation to Barrett’s fist:

Both men emerged with ejections, but only one emerged—rather, remained—as the game’s most hated figure: Anthony John Pierzynski. It didn’t matter that Barrett had been the aggressor, a man with a too-hot temper and a too-quick jab. It only mattered that Pierzynski had been Pierzynski, a hyper-competitive annoyance whose reputation would find confirmation in several player polls—the most recent in 2012—ranking him at the very top of the very bottom: the best at being loathsome, awful and supremely punchable.

Pierzynski’s peers would even vote him The Player You’d Most Like To See Beaned.

Do fans of the game agree?

As a sport and an industry, baseball has produced no shortage of consensus heroes, players whose talents and personalities have cemented their standing in the pantheon of the American Pastime, yet the game has also delivered an assortment of punks, scalawags and plain old villainous men who, like Pierzynski, we absolutely love to hate. History, no doubt, is full of figures whose prodigious talents as players are weighed against their singular awfulness as people, a calculus that all fans must undertake when evaluating candidates for their private halls of fame. In the late 19th century, future Hall of Famer Cap Anson refused to play against dark-skinned players. A generation later, Ty Cobb made it a practice to spike opponents on the field and to attack minorities—and in one instance, a handicapped fan—off it. Recent seasons, too, have generated a variety of execrable men. Does anyone truly miss John Rocker and Milton Bradley in any capacity beyond their skill on the diamond?

Now as then, bad men are easy to dislike.

And yet for all that awfulness, bad men don’t always rank as our least favorite baseball players. Sure, we might recognize Ugueth Urbina as a less-than-savory character who attempted to injure and possibly murder four men with a machete and some gasoline, but does the former reliever actually rank No. 1 on any fan’s roster of least favorite players?

The answer might well be yes, but the larger question remains: What does make for a least favorite player? Is it someone like Pierzynski, the odds-on favorite in the annual Most Hated pageant but a man who, so far as we know, has never threatened anyone with a machete and a gallon of unleaded? Is it a man like Rocker, a reasonably gifted pitcher who in the span of one infamous utterance managed to disparage just about everyone except white English-speaking heterosexuals who travel in any conveyance other than the 7 Train? Is it Bradley, a supremely talented hitter who alienated fans and teammates by indulging an explosive temper several times too often (and who is now serving a sentence for domestic violence)? Is it the guy who underperformed for your team? – or the guy who over-performed for theirs? Is it the slap-hitter who offended sabermetric sensibilities by BABIP-ing his way to an All-Star berth? Is it the dude whose face and lips you loathe?

In efforts to explore the matter and to settle on an answer constructed of any number of answers, I put the question to nine baseball writers and also to myself: In short, who is your least favorite (or most hated) baseball player, historically and/or currently, and why? As a reader might expect, the answer depends entirely on the person.

Patrick Dubuque: “Growing up in Seattle in the eighties, it was hard to hate ballplayers. You need very specific conditions to craft hate: time, pressure, proximity. I had none of those. The team had no bitter scars, no rivals; the franchise was so thoroughly downtrodden that to despise any particular opponent would be to hate the whole of the American League. A snowman might as well try to curse the sun.

“We tried our best to curse, though. The natural alternative, the only alternative, was to turn on our own. It wasn’t easy. The team’s prominent names were a study in haplessness, a string of gentle oafs and embarrassed disappointments. Our heroes were a little too much like us. That is, until Rey Quinones came along.

“Quinones arrived under the cloak of intrigue: he had power, speed, and defense. He could throw a baseball from home plate into the center field bleachers, according to the team trainer. Ted Williams, somehow, likened him to ‘Frank Robinson at shortstop.’ He could do anything. And he did do pretty much anything: follow a diving play with a throwing error on a two-hop grounder, or doubling into the gap and then getting picked off second. Famously, he was unavailable to pinch hit in one ballgame because he was back in the clubhouse, stuck on world 8-4 of Super Mario Bros. The team got rid of him soon after.

A Hardball Times Update
Goodbye for now.

“His baseball cards always wore the same bemused, impish smile, and as kids, we tore up each one we saw, a rebellion against the man who owed us so much. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve found hate harder to summon. Baseball is, in its milliseconds, less a conflict between one man and another, and more of one between each man and the ball itself, making it do what they want it to do. I understand now that the villain of my youth couldn’t be the villain I imagined him to be, because what I hated him for, his mental errors, were in no way immoral. He was a man without control. If anything he’s just a pathetic figure, a man who had to fight himself as much as his opponents.

“Now I just hope he beat Super Mario that day, before his bosses and the media and his own guilt fell upon him.”

Hey, I know the feeling. Growing up in Dallas, I also found it hard to hate ballplayers, not only because hatred is hard to summon as a happy youngster but also because I wanted to join those guys someday, to become a part of that fairytale fraternity of men for whom baseball cards were places to put their own names and faces. Hatred strayed still farther from reach because the hometown Rangers, like the Mariners, had no generational roots in deep emotion, no sour antagonism or soaring schadenfreude of the sort that seemed coded into ancestral bloodlines in places like Boston and New York, places that appeared as magical baseball kingdoms on my family’s fuzzy Magnavox.

Who could I possibly hate? No slap-hitting shortstop, on the strength of an ultra-rare home run, had ever bumped my team from the playoffs, because the Rangers had never even sniffed the pie on the postseason sill. My alternative, like Dubuque’s, was to direct whatever bile I could muster onto one of the Rangers’ own soldiers, an act that felt as occasionally treasonous as it did occasionally great. Jeff Kunkel, like Rey Quinones, came ushered on a stock of superlatives: He had speed, range, power and an arm so strong that, according to scouts, he could become an all-star pitcher as easily as he could an all-world shortstop. As the third pick in the 1984 draft, the all-American son of a major league umpire seemed destined to lead the Rangers at last to the Promised Land, and many fans, including this one, hitched their hopes to his 6-foot-2, 180-lb. frame.

Slowly at first, and then more rapidly, as if pulled ineluctably toward baseball’s version of a cognitive black hole, those hopes fell victim to an annual succession of batting averages that might have been impressive only if Kunkel had indeed become a pitcher. By his age-28 season, when he put together an almost impossibly bad .170/.221/.280 triple slash line, Kunkel had come to personify the collective trajectory of my poor Rangers, a team whose temporary highs would yield inevitably to long-endured lows and whose pie-in-the-sky dreams would tumble downward into slammed-shut windows.

Kunkel was my own private fall guy, the man who shouldered the brunt of the blame I unfairly manufactured. Today I find it hard to sustain any animus toward a player whose failures, like those of any overrated prospect, should hardly include the wreckage of someone else’s dreams, but still I smile at the memory of a sports-page account: A group of children were visiting the Rangers’ locker room, and upon seeing Kunkel reading fan mail, one kid said to the reporter, “Kunkel has a fan club?”

Dayn Perry: “I grew up a Cardinals fan and was honor-bound to hate the Mets of the mid- to late-1980s. And hate them I did. With some players, it was a mixed loathing. I couldn’t do anything but feign hatred for the most wonderful Keith Hernandez, and Gary Carter was impossible to dislike, as was Mookie Wilson. But to smoking hell with the sinister remainder. Ron Darling and his Yale education. Ray Knight was not worthy to look upon Eric Davis’s handsome face, let alone punch it. Wally Backman was an objectively unlikable red-ass. Tim Teufel had a fake name. Roger McDowell was painfully unfunny. Worst of all was Lenny Dykstra.

Nails“It’s an objective truth that his face and lips are stupid. I also loathed him for his f**k-all ‘Nails’ poster, which would confront me while I was otherwise flipping through the rack at Spencer’s in search of Heather Thomas.

“Just look at him—at once pouty and cocksure. Put your shirt on, you toned and well-compensated professional athlete who has lots of sex, probably.

“Dykstra was the archetypal ‘player you hate on other teams but love on your own,’ but he was not mine. I cared not for his coiled aggression, and I cared not for, once more, his face and lips. They were stupid, you see. All of this was a tribal and provincial act of hatred on my part, and I’ve managed to put aside such childish inclinations. With regard to Dykstra, though, time has vindicated my contempt. Yea, verily: Lenny Dykstra is an a**hole filled with malaise.”

Hey, I know the feeling—sort of, and very much so. As a Rangers fan, I was not honor-bound to hate anyone (with the possibly indefensible exception of poor Jeff Kunkel). Unlike fans on the east and west coasts, Rangers fans dwelled on a calm emotional island, unburdened by geographic rivalries or fractious proximities to other fan bases. (The nearest big league city, Houston, played host to a team in the other league, so for all we cared, it might as well have been a major port city on the dark side of the moon.) Add to that the franchise’s woeful string of pennant-free seasons and, well… you had a fan base freed of the fear and loathing that poisoned the followers of other teams, those who launched double-A batteries and caustic taunts at players in rival uniforms.

No team would move closer to Arlington, of course, but in the mid- to late-’90s one team did relocate to that darkest part of the human soul, where hatred has its mooring: the New York Yankees. The Rangers had finally gotten good, even great, but in their first-ever playoff appearance (1996) and in the two appearances that followed (1998 and ’99), they ran smack into the pinstriped juggernaut that won the World Series in each of those years.

Turns out, it really is easy to hate greatness, especially when it plays New York, New York ad nauseam and hoists a trophy every fall. And so to hell and back and to hell once more with those entire triumphant rosters: Bernie Williams and his magical jazz hands. Tino Martinez and his stupid handsome face. Scott Brosius and his lunch pail. Chuck Knoblauch was a consensus dillweed. Ricky Ledee was not worthy to look upon Derek Jeter’s coattails, let alone ride them, but oh! Derek Jeter was already Derek Jeter!—soooooo Derek Jeter, with that pumping fist and confident smirk and absolute unrelenting Jeter-ness. Kill me. And Clemens, Cone, Pettitte—resurrect me just to kill me again.

Worst of all, though, was Paul O’Neill. It is a scientifically substantiated fact that Paul O’Neill had the most punchable face this side of A.J. Pierzynski. He never saw a strike call that he didn’t consider the second-worst offense (after only the invasion of Poland) ever perpetrated upon humankind, and the sour twist of his punchable mug never failed to register his disgust with the unworthy umpire. Petulant, childish and punkish, the dude once got so frustrated with the anti-Paulie turn of events that he kickedkicked!—a ball from right field to the infield. (As testament to the connectivity of punkishness, it was Dykstra who hit the ball.) The thing of it was—and this is what made you really hate the guy—it worked! For just a moment, Paulie had channeled Pelé into his stupid wiry body and the ball had landed safely in a teammate’s glove! Ugh.

Yep, things always seemed to work out for Paulie—get traded to the Yanks and win four more friggin’ rings, anyone?—but in the end it might have been better for us all that fortune settled so frequently upon his curly-haired head. Otherwise, he might have pouted his way to back in time to become the scrappy point guard on the 1957-69 Celtics. Ugh.

The years, however, have softened my contempt. I kind of like the guy on Yankees broadcasts. Yea, verily: Paul O’Neill is a commentator now emptied of my loathing.

Frank Jackson: “Actually, I didn’t have to ponder the question very long: Alex Rodriguez is the answer.

“You will recall that when he came to the Rangers, he signed the fattest contract in baseball. That, however, did not bother me in the least. What was he supposed to do?  Turn it down? He was a productive player for the Rangers, though it didn’t make any difference in the win-loss columns. But that was more the fault of the pitching staff.

“No, my animus was purely personal.

“The Rangers have something called Autograph Wednesday. Before every Wednesday home game, a couple of players would sign in the concourse for a half hour. The tricky thing about it was you didn’t know who it would be till you got there. Typically, I would show up when the gates opened so I could see who it was. Usually, it wasn’t necessary to immediately stand in line, and frequently you had time enough to stop at both autograph stations.

“One fine Wednesday, I entered the ballpark when the gates opened and saw the name Alex Rodriguez on the autograph sign. Well, I knew this meant getting in line immediately, even though the autograph session wasn’t scheduled to start for an hour or so. I wasn’t first in line, but I wasn’t in a bad position. I had no doubt that given a half-hour session, I would come away with an autograph.

“But when the session was supposed to start, there was no Alex Rodriguez. He showed up 10 minutes (fashionably?) late. I wasn’t happy about having to wait in line 10 minutes longer, but at least I was close enough to the front of the line that I never doubted I would get an autograph in the remaining 20 minutes of the autograph session.

“He started signing and the line inched forward, and just as I was about to step up to the table, he left early! Almost an hour and a half standing in line with nothing to show for it. I could have been watching batting practice or seeking out other autographs or drinking beer or just basking in the sun, but no, I was waiting in line for Prince Alex. Technically, he wasn’t a no-show, but his face time didn’t do me any good. I remember there were vendors selling 8-1/2″ x 11″ color pictures of Alex to the people waiting in line. Refunds, anyone? That’ll be the day!

“I’m not terribly vociferous at ballgames, but once the game started, I was on Rodriguez every time he came to bat. I don’t remember who won the game, but I do remember that he went 0-for-4 (Randy Winn made an outstanding catch at the left field wall to rob him of at least a double). That was all that mattered.

“I know I’m not alone in my dislike for Alex Rodriguez, but in my case it’s strictly personal. Before that fateful Wednesday afternoon in Arlington, I bore him no ill will at all.”

As it stands, this is not a feeling with which I’m intimately familiar. Aside from the time I got Rod Carew’s autograph (and, better, his tacit endorsement of my bold attempt to do so), I’ve never sought, let alone stood in line for, anyone’s signature. It’s not that I don’t see value in the process and its outcome. It’s just that in such situations, I’d rather be drinking beer or basking in the sun, customary alternatives that Jackson rightly cites.

That said, you can’t frame a hangover or sell a sunburn on eBay.

In any event, the anecdote does point to a larger issue: players’ responsibility to fans. With strict regard to his utility in the marketplace, a player’s lone responsibility to the fan is to show up and do the job, to perform all the functions that crewcut-wearing coaches preach: be on time, work hard, perform to the best of your ability—in short, every hackneyed sentiment you might see on an inspirational poster in a cubicle-filled office.

Of course, the more hackneyed the sentiment, the greater its truth, probably.

In a larger sense, the player should always remember that the fan is funding his bankroll, even if the fan can’t really afford it and the player has enough scratch for five human lifetimes. Small courtesies can go long way and aren’t hard to perform. Acknowledge fans. Sign autographs for the agreed-upon duration. And though you, as a baseball player, might quibble with your status as a role model, at least understand that kids are around.

Here’s what I recall: an unrelenting blitzkrieg of F-bombs.

It happened years ago. I was behind the batting cage while the A’s took batting practice when suddenly, as if guided by the ghost of the saltiest sailor in maritime history, Rickey Henderson launched a hear-it-to-believe-it salvo of utterances that, had they been broadcast on network TV, would have boasted more bleeeeeeps than discernable words.

I’m no monk, damn it, but jeez-o-pete, Rickey, pipe the hell down!

Granted, a well-placed expletive can punch up a monologue pretty nicely, but when F-bombs, or some variation thereof, serve as the nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and bizarre adjectival/pronounal hybrids, it’s probably best to back the frick off.

Consarnit, Rickey, look around! Kids are listening!

Then again, a smile and cheerful spirit accompanied every F-bomb. He was nothing if not a happy guy, generous with his gestures and having a laugh with guys from both teams. Fans pay money, sure, but they also pay attention, and happiness is always better than surliness. For reference, see: Kingman, Dave; Bonds, Barry—nobody’s favorite.

Alex Skillin: “As for my least favorite player, I’d say I have two, both of them Yankees, but one who I disliked more in the past, and another who I barely remember baseball without.

“The first is Aaron Boone, and not just because he hit that walk-off home run in Game 7 of the ALCS (have I given away my Red Sox fandom yet?), but more so because he had the audacity to tear his ACL while playing pick-up basketball later that offseason. He had already crushed my hopes of seeing the Red Sox play in the World Series and then he tore his ACL, which, all too neatly, opened up a spot at third base for the Yankees to add A-Rod. This of course came after a month-long saga that saw Boston fail to trade for A-Rod, and the way everything worked out for the Yankees (the way everything always worked out for the Yankees) just crushed my optimism. I couldn’t believe Boone had ended our season on the field and then, somehow, given the Yankees a perfect opportunity to add the best player in baseball to what was already a loaded roster. Of course, things ended up working out for the Red Sox, but that’s beside the point. Boone was exemplary of how the Yankees always seemed to prevail, always seemed to get that extra bit of luck, no matter the circumstances.

“My other least favorite player is Derek Jeter, who has tortured me throughout my years as a fan. I don’t mind him as a person (he seems generally likable), nor do I believe he was overrated—he’s one of the best shortstops ever. But it was uncanny how he always, always came through for the Yankees. Bloop hits, inside-out doubles down the right-field line, line drives over the shortstop’s head. He was so reliable in dashing my hopes and leading the Yankees to victory. He never gave me the opportunity not to dislike him. From my perspective, Jeter was just so dependably unlikable.”

These are feelings that I have known. As mentioned, my Rangers allegiance has left me wholly unburdened by the generational fandom—the ancestral antipathy—that inflames the Big Apple-Beantown rivaly. To wit: The distance between New York and Boston is roughly the same as that between Dallas and Texarkana, and trust me, nobody is driving I-20 with plans to proclaim any civic or athletic primacy. In the other direction, no Abilene mom is training her toddler to spell “I hate Dallas and especially Dallas/Fort Worth-based professional sports franchises” with his Alpha-Bits.

An absence of rooted hostility, however, is no barrier to developing hatred, especially when it comes to teams for which every bounce seems providential, every break a collusion of fortune’s agents. As for Aaron Boone, he is hardly the first Yankee to get wallypipped; the Yankees invented wallypipping, a creation of high yield. But more recently, other teams seem to have used injuries as springboards for unheralded but top-notch understudies; the recent Athletics are one such team, and the pitcher tandem of Jarrod Parker and A.J. Griffin are the exemplars of this maddening Oaklandesque phenomenon.

Going into 2014, the young right-handed starters seemed primed to lead yet another stout A’s staff, but during the offseason Tommy John announced his name inside their elbows. No rational fan ever wishes harm on opposing players, but Rangers fans processed this development with no small measure of optimism. The A’s are toast! Hmmmmm. Hardly. If memory serves, a pair of Boy Scouts and, later, a couple of nuns, bus drivers and/or cosmetics clerks stepped in to throw a zillion consecutive innings of one-hit shutout ball.

Grrrr. How do the A’s always manage such miracles from the ashes of major injury? A.J. and Jarrod, you’re on my list. It’s not your fault, but who said blame-casting is rational?

Now, as for a generally likable fellow who nonetheless became Private Enemy No. 1, I direct your attention to former Yankees center fielder Bernie Williams. In the third inning of Game 1 of the 1999 American League Division Series, against the Rangers, Williams ranged across the outfield to turn a would-be Juan Gonzalez double into another elegant out, then proceeded to hit a three-run homer, a two-run double and a run-scoring single in the Yankees’ 8-0 victory en route to their three-game sweep. For Williams, this sort of single-handed destruction was nothing new. Three years earlier, he had hit .467 and stroked three bombs in the Yankees’ ALDS dismissal of Texas.

How is it possible to loathe such a talented and soft-spoken man, a guy who titled one of his jazz-guitar compositions Lullaby for Beatriz in honor of his daughter and who works to restore music education in disadvantaged schools? Three dingers in four games, that’s how. It’s probably ironic that his latest album is titled Moving Forward, because I just can’t.

Jeff Sullivan: “If I’m going to be completely honest, I don’t really hate anymore. It’s an ugly, unnecessary emotion, and I don’t like to let those feelings in. I don’t hate baseball teams, and I generally don’t hate baseball players. But I used to hate—I used to be younger—and there is one player who still manages to provoke me, one player who still makes me sneer at the mere mention of his name. I really just can’t stand Francisco Rodriguez.

“Oh, it began just because I didn’t like the Angels. I hated the Angels, I hated how the Angels always seemed to beat the Mariners, and I hated how so many Angels victories concluded with Rodriguez’s celebratory antics. The whole point of the dance was to get under the opponent’s skin, or at least that’s a factor, and while I know I’ve got a double standard since I don’t mind Fernando Rodney’s arrow-shot, Rodriguez was over the top. I don’t know if he still is; I make a point of not watching him. Thankfully, his career should be ending soon.

“It began as petty hatred. Ordinary sports hatred. Rodriguez was a rival. But then there were the other incidents. Abuse, domestic and otherwise. I don’t know Francisco Rodriguez, but I feel pretty confident about my evaluation of him as being a s***head. Though Rodriguez presumably isn’t baseball’s only s***head, I was already looking for reasons not to like him more, and you can’t kick the shit out of people and expect other people to like you. Not unless you do it professionally. Rodriguez seems like an ass, even as an adult, and though everyone’s entitled to additional chances, Rodriguez doesn’t have the right to be liked or respected.

“I guess what it comes down to is, of all the players in baseball, I think I’d least like to hang out with Francisco Rodriguez in my day-to-day life. Based on what I think his personality is like, we’d have nothing in common, and we’d drive one another up the wall. When I’m around a person I don’t care for, I try to spend less time with the person. When Rodriguez is around a person he doesn’t care for, he might just start throwing punches. No thank you. I would key Francisco Rodriguez’s car when he isn’t looking. Or actually, I wouldn’t, because that might result in someone going to the hospital. I wouldn’t want that on my conscience.”

If I, too, can be completely honest, this is a range of feelings I know well—very well. Allow me to address those feelings in reverse order by first creating a players’ parking lot full of cars, no doubt high-end and probably equipped with vanity plates, whose doors I’d like to secretly key. (In this exercise—call it a destructive-thought experiment—I ignore Sullivan’s closing caveat. EMT service need not concern itself with my imagination.)

Row 1 (current players)

Ryan Braun: liar, fraud. So narcissistic he makes Kanye West look like Jane Addams.

Delmon Young: bigot. Should be forced to celebrate Yom Kippur with Ryan Braun.

Josh Lueke, rapist: Prison might be a good fit.

Grant Balfour: hothead. “Lighten up, Francis.”

Mike Moustakas: punk. Should be forced to attend the Missouri School of Journalism.

Brian Wilson: showboat. “Dude, we get it. You’re different.

Jonathan Papelbon: loudmouth/boldcrotch. “Jonathan, use your indoor groin.”

Heath Bell: self-promoter. “Nice slide, guy. What, was Wilson getting too much love?”

John Lackey: bad teammate. “Eating chicken, drinking beer, playing video games and, worse, cursing at teammates is no way to go through games, son.”

Row 2 (recent, or somewhat recent, retirees)

Vicente Padilla: headhunter, bad teammate. “If you’re going to throw at batters’ domes just because you hold a grudge, do us all a favor and move to the DH-free National League.”

Luke Scott: birther. Should have his birth certificate revoked, somehow.

Curt Schilling: blowhard/crybaby/failed entrepreneur. “If you’re going to indulge a massive ego and persecution complex simultaneously, please have the decency to admit that you might not have time to run a company in any way other than into the ground.”

Albert Belle: curmudgeon. So much talent, so little joy, so few Hall of Fame votes.

John Rocker: bigot. Should be forced to ride the 7 Train Monday through Friday.

Carl Everett: abuser, bigot. Should ride a dinosaur to a meeting of the Pride Foundation.

Chuck Knoblauch: abuser. Should be sentenced to five rounds with Ronda Rousey.

Brett Myers: abuser. Should be sentenced to Milton Bradley.

Milton Bradley: abuser. Should be sentenced to Brett Myers.

Row 3 (long-gone players, each driving a Model T, presumably)

Hal Chase: very bad teammate. “Hey, Hal, what are the odds that you’ll team up with gamblers and agree to ‘throw’ games and then be stupid enough to leave a paper trail?”

John McGraw: cheater, hyper-competitive thug. “You’re lucky that instant replay didn’t exist in your day, Mr. McGraw. Otherwise, that lone, distracted umpire surely would have seen you tripping and blocking baserunners while they rounded the bases, and Fin De Siecle ESPN would have consistently featured you in its Not Top 10 nickelodeons.”

Rogers Hornsby: sourpuss. “Mr. Hornsby, how can anyone so good at baseball be so bad at life? A .424 average should have had you singing Joy to the World, man, but instead you were sullen and mean. How do we know that teammates despised you? After the Cubs advanced to the 1932 World Series following your August departure from the team, the players voted not to allocate any World Series money to you, their former player/manager.”

Cap Anson: racist. “Mr. Anson, may you spend eternity trying, and failing, to find a position—any position, other than on your knees—with the Everlasting Negro Leagues.”

Ty Cobb: racist, jerk, racist jerk. “Mr. Cobb, may you spend eternity being slapped, kicked, spiked and stabbed—no, let’s call off the stabbings; we’ll show you the mercy that you consistently denied others—by dark-skinned, handicapped elevator operators.”

Carl Mays: terrible teammate, headhunter: “It’s sad that nobody—not fans, not writers, not teammates, certainly not opponents—liked you, Mr. Mays. We feel bad for you; it must have been unpleasant. Still, you probably should have refrained from throwing chin music such that you ultimately and perhaps inevitably killed a guy. Your lone saving grace is that in a game in 1915, you threw at Ty Cobb in each of his first few at-bats, brushed him back in the next at-bat, called him a ‘yellow dog,’ engaged him in fisticuffs and then, with order restored, promptly hit him on the wrist with the next pitch.”

Here and now, honesty is summoned once more: Imaginary vandalism never felt so good!

All those car alarms—hah! And me? Not so much as a scratch.

More seriously, what it comes down to is that among current players—current, because otherwise I’d have to throw down with Cobb—the player I’d least like to hang out with is Ryan Braun. Sure, Pictionary might be fun; a drink at the pub might be entertaining. Braun is smart and engaging, but therein lies the rub. Intelligence, eloquence and charisma are traits shared by history’s greatest con artists. With friends like that, who needs salesmen?

Continuing in reverse order now, we come to a temporary stopping point: It’s true that ordinary sports hatred might be the most puerile among the emotions, a sentiment unsupported by any measure of mature judgment, but is it possible, in the end, that ordinary sports hatred is the best alternative among the balance of directed hostilities? Would not the sports world, as it remains a part of the larger world, rate as a slightly jollier place if the sole reasons for loathing were predicated strictly on on-field acts?


John Paschal is a regular contributor to The Hardball Times and The Hardball Times Baseball Annual.
113 Comments
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Phillies113
9 years ago

All time least favorite: Ty Cobb. What a slimeball.

Current least favorite: Alex Rodriguez. Partially because I can’t seem to type his name without typing “q” instead of “g”, and then having to go back and edit it before posting. Incredibly annoying.

Current least favorite Phillie: Jonathan Papelbon. Because.

All time least favorite Phillie: Travis Lee. Never have I seen a player look so blah and disinterested while playing the game. I was young when I watched him play, though, so that may have clouded my judgment; maybe he wasn’t that bad! But I’ll never know, because nostalgia is powerful. I could check to see if my perception of Lee is wrong, but, much like Travis, I simply have no desire to do so.

John Paschal
9 years ago
Reply to  Phillies113

Awesome comment, Phillies113. Thanks. It absolutely cracked me up.

Your reasoning is sound on all counts. Of course, in such matters of personal taste, the reasoning is (almost) always sound. Yours is just especially entertaining. Bravo.

I suppose the best part if this exercise is that there are no wrong answers – unless someone’s answer is Adrian Beltre. Then we’ve got a problem.

Cheers!

tz
9 years ago
Reply to  John Paschal

Note to self – develop a similarity score metric combining on and off field characteristics, then see who has the lowest similarity score with Beltre.

Dan
9 years ago
Reply to  Phillies113

Eric Plunk. He made growing up an Indians fan difficult. They would bring him in in the 7th or 8th in close games…and he blew every one. When he would start his run from the bullpen to the mound you could hear a collective groan go up from the crowd at the Jake.

Disciple of Rueben Kinkaid
9 years ago
Reply to  Phillies113

Phillies113 you obviously weren’t old enough to see Von Hayes play. Made Travis Lee look like Ernie Banks.

Eddie
9 years ago

Yadier Molina has an insufferably punchable face, especially when he’s doing that snarl stare thing when he fails to throw a runner out on a stolen base attempt. He can go to hell.

John Paschal
9 years ago
Reply to  Eddie

Perhaps Molina’s condition — doctors call it Insufferably Punchable Face Syndrome, probably — is the reason he began wearing a catcher’s mask in the first place. It just so happened that he had some talent, too. Call it catcher’s kismet.

Thanks for the response! This has the makings of an entertaining morning.

Chris
9 years ago

Alex Rodriguez.

As a Jays fan I still remember his bush league antics of calling for a ball behind a career AAA third baseman Howie Clark. You’re the best player in baseball with a $250M deal and you have to resort to schoolyard bully shenanigans to get a dude making league minimum at age 33 to get him to drop a ball? That’s just mean for the sake of being mean.

John Paschal
9 years ago
Reply to  Chris

Yeah, that was a bad moment for A-Rod and for baseball. Poor form, completely. I remember it vividly, and I still wish it hadn’t happened.

A-Rod will be a popular answer to this question, but my own feelings toward him have never quite risen to the level of strong dislike, mostly because I just feel sorry for the guy. Granted, it’s hard to pity a dude who makes a kajillion dollars a year playing baseball, but he’s always just seemed so uncomfortable in his skin, so hapless when it comes to understanding who he really is. It’ll be interesting to see how history rates him.

pounder
9 years ago

Dave Kapler,steroid king of the Bosox,followed closely by David Ortiz,another roider hiding behind George Mitchells’ protective apron

.

You're an Idiot
9 years ago
Reply to  pounder

Um…Gabe Kapler?

Chris
9 years ago
Reply to  pounder

Al Hrabosky. I hated him as a player, and I hate him as an announcer.

I remember Lenny Dykstra getting a beer dumped down his back in Wrigley Field making a throw from the warning track in center. I treasure that memory.

Eric Cioe
9 years ago

Jered Weaver. It all stems from 31 July, 2011, Verlander vs Weaver in Detroit. Both were sort of front-running for the Cy Young at that point. Ordonez hits a long fly and watches to see whether it was fair or foul. It ended up over the fence for a 2 run shot. Weaver takes exception to this. A few innings later, Guillen gets up and absolutely smokes one out to right, stares Weaver down, and then trots around the bases slowly. The next pitch is right at Alex Avila’s head.

Verlander, meanwhile, had not allowed a hit, and went on to win not only the Cy Young but also the MVP. Jered Weaver went on to be one of baseball’s biggest crybabies / prettyboys.

Steven
9 years ago
Reply to  Eric Cioe

Jered Weaver’s hair is reason enough to hate him.

Chris
9 years ago
Reply to  Eric Cioe

Weaver a pretty boy? The man is ugly as sin.

Paul Blocklyn
9 years ago

Chico Ruiz. Was he a great guy? Was he a jerk? Does it matter? Just ask any Phillies fan who remembers September 21, 1964.

Dave
9 years ago
Reply to  Paul Blocklyn

Wow. I saw him play in 64. Chico has the famous line “Bench me or trade me” when he was with the Angels. That steal of home was the Phillies demise supposedly.

tony matrisin
9 years ago

Bryce harper total arrogrant duche.

Tim
9 years ago
Reply to  tony matrisin

Harper has been not anywhere near this since he entered the majors. Seriously, name me an instance of him being extremely arrogant that wouldn’t apply to literally every player in the league.

I am not a Nats fan.

Spanky
9 years ago

Hunter Pence.

I liked him as an Astro, didn’t care about him as a Phillie. But as a Giant he is insufferable. He kills my team, the Rockies, which makes it even worse. The one batting/golf glove (seriously, who does that except the kid in Little League whose mom forgot to pack both?), pants rolled up ABOVE the knees, the throwing motion like an Iron Mike afflicted by some weird wiring bug, the swing that somehow manages to violate all the fundamentals of hitting mechanics and still produce broken-bat flares that nestle in front of outfielders.

I’m sure he’s a great guy. And he looks like he genuinely enjoys playing the game. I’d probably love him if he played for Colorado.

But he doesn’t, and damn, is he annoying. He’s emblematic of the Giants in all their frustrating, maddening, lucky-but-actually-kind of talented-ness.

Ugh.

Dave
9 years ago
Reply to  Spanky

As a Dodger fan, I am honor-bound to hate all things Orange and Black. I try to hate Hunter Pence. I do. I make fun of his goofy mechanics, flesh-colored beard, and general alien-ness. But… I can’t do it. The dude is just so obviously enjoying playing baseball that it’s infectious. Baseball is supposed to be fun, and faux-hating Hunter Pence (while actually liking and appreciating him) makes it more so.

tz
9 years ago
Reply to  Dave

I love that summary of faux-hating. I’ve faux-hated all kind of Yankees from Rivera going all the way back to Goose Gossage (in his prime the pinnacle of bad-assery).

Tramps Like Us
9 years ago
Reply to  Dave

Yeah, as a Giants fan I really want to hate Clayton Kershaw. Just can’t do it.

Chris
9 years ago

David Freese.

As a Pirates fan I am classically trained to hate the Cardinals, so in 2011 I was rooting for the Rangers, as was America, I think. Anyway, David Freese, not that great, always manages to get the big hit that dashes everyone’s hopes and dreams.

But his 2011 WS heroics are not what irk me, October 9, 2013, Game 5 of the NLDS. The scrappy, and newly awesome, Pirates are trying to stave off being eliminated by cyborg Adam Wainwright. Gerrit Cole, the rookie sensation, on the mound for the Pirates, looked like he brought his best stuff. Abundance of hope! But then, in the second inning, David Freese steps up to the plates, hits one of his hopes and dreams dashing homers. Again, I was not angry about the dinger, but when he finished rounding the bases, noted war criminal, David Freese actually took a CURTAIN CALL. In the second inning. The score was 2-0, there was plenty of baseball yet to be played and that dude opted for a curtain call. Hometown team or not, that’s just lame, and cemented him as my least favorite baseball player of all-time.

John Paschal
9 years ago
Reply to  Chris

Ugh. Freese. Yep, my life would be a bit better if that dude had chosen a different career. It’s hard to hate a guy who’s simply doing his job — and, for one moment, doing it well — but let’s just say I’m not inviting him to my next birthday party.

Cardsfan
9 years ago
Reply to  Chris

That’s kind of tradition in STL and I think it’s misinterpreted sometimes. I was at the game so couldn’t see into the dugout in this exact case, but a lot of times players (or the manager) will push someone out for a curtain call. Freese is (and always will be) a hero in St. Louis so he kind of had to do it.

And, Waino wasn’t a cyborg that night – he was a total stud.

Jason B
9 years ago

The commentary on Papelbon is priceless – “boldcrotch” indeed. That needs to become a thing.

“Gee whiz, Terry in Accounting sure knows his way around a balance sheet but he is SUCH A BOLDCROTCH. 2/10 would not bang.”

Also I like the flip side of this discussion – little-heralded (or not exactly superstar level) players that you absolutely loved. God I was so all-in on Brandon Morrow. Hope he bounces back to some success with the Padres.

John Paschal
9 years ago
Reply to  Jason B

Yeah, let’s get “boldcrotch” T-shirts printed. Better yet, “boldcrotch” Speedos.

“Shark Tank,” here we come!

P.S. That’s a good story idea. I think I might steal it. Please don’t sue me.

Jordan Gohncock
9 years ago

Derek Jeter is the absolute worst.

Good riddance.

Jared P.
9 years ago

First blush reaction:

-Kevin Millar, loudmouth: Built a broadcasting career on being an also ran during the Boston Red Sox curse year. A mediocre situational hitter who was in the right place at the right time, but claims to know the answers to everything.

-Curt Schilling, bloviator, liar, fraud/moron, creationist: I’ve busted my ankle three times and never had it bleed. I’m firmly in the red Sharpie camp. There is his gaming company, which earns him fraud/moron status. And then there is the evolution thing, which strikes me as odd. Here you have a guy that developed cancer, which proves that cells can evolve and mutate naturally. Just genuinely unlikable.

-Dusty Baker, serial pitcher abuser: Can we count a manager and his body count of young arms that he destroyed? Or his horrendous on-field parenting from the ’02 series?

-George Bell, jerk: Refused to sign autographs by pretending he didn’t speak English. Tony Fernandez used to rip him to the fans. It was great.

-A-Rod: For all of the reasons mentioned above.

tz
9 years ago

Current players: Lackey, who in addition to your list of reasons also dumped his cancer-stricken wife, and Eric Hosmer, thanks to his actions in that Eno article on top of his playing like a poor man’s Travis Lee and looking like an inbreeding experiment gone bad.

Past players: Steve Garvey, with all the adulation he got for being the All-American wholesome male (but no mention of the adulation from his baby mamas). And as a young guy, I also hated Shea Hillenbrand and Scott Cooper, if only because the inept Red Sox front office kept viewing these guys as stars in the making, in Cooper’s case to the point where they let a certain slugging 3B prospect go for a half-season rental of Larry Andersen. BUT, I can’t say I hate those two any more, since it’s quite possible that they’re super guys in general. Better to save the hate for 24/7 jerks.

Chad Kreuter's hat
9 years ago

Steve Garbage (AKA Garvey)

Steve P
9 years ago

Justin Morneau: “I don’t care who wins the division, as long as it’s not Chicago” -2006

I don’t care who wins the batting title, as long as they don’t sit out the last 2 days to do it…

bucdaddy
9 years ago

This is easy.

Still in the game: Ryan Braun, sociopath.

Out of the game: Mel Hall, sociopath.

http://www.sbnation.com/2014/7/15/5883593/the-many-crimes-of-mel-hall

John Paschal
9 years ago
Reply to  bucdaddy

Agreed, heartily, on both counts.

Actually, I referenced Mel Hall in a recent piece. (Reference is in the final graf.)

http://www.banknotesindustries.com/whats-the-big-idea/ooh-hey-look-i-have-a-hall-ballot-too/

Kreto Kreto
9 years ago

Here’s a little story that you might take some joy in if you dislike Aaron Boone: Me and three friends were returning to our Philadelphia hotel after a concert. We were pretty drunk and happened to have a cooler full of beer with us. Apparently the Marlins were in town and staying at the same hotel (we saw Dontrelle Willis earlier and he was actually a really nice dude). But after the show, we got on the elevator and one of my buddies turns to the guy also on the elevator and says “Holy s**t. You’re Aaron Boone. I’m a huge Yankees fan and that home run you hit was the greatest moment of my life.” We start talking to him (he’s pretty awkward) and tell him he should come chill with us and we show him the cooler full of beer. He says “Yeah, maybe I’ll come by if you guys give me on of those Beck’s.” We of course oblige and give it to him just as he’s getting to his floor. He stands there facing us and starts trying to twist off the top. Beck’s, of course, is not a twist top. He struggles for way too long as we all stare at him dumbfounded. He finally realizes his mistake, is clearly embarrassed, and just silently backs out of the elevator. The door closes and we all burst into laughter. He did not come hang out with us.

John Paschal
9 years ago
Reply to  Kreto Kreto

Man, that’s absolutely amazing. Awesome. So vivid.

That anecdote needs to be shared on a thousand barstools, my friend.

Jon
9 years ago

Paul O’Neil

I was a Mariners fan like all children of the late 80s/early 90s (other than those front-running Yankee fans). This must have been a Sunday Night Baseball game as the Yankees came to the Kingdome. I can’t remember the exact play, but O’Neil retreats back to the dugout and goes on one of his tyrades just throwing the gatorade cooler out of the dugout onto the turf. Bat Boy comes down to clean it up and O’Neil sees the kid go to pick it up and comes out with his bat and starts hitting the gatorade cooler even closer to the field of play. I will always remember that for him and wished the baseball gods had kept him away from the world series. Unfortunately for me, he won several rings, plus being a left handed kid the only left handed glove at the sporting goods store bore his signature on it so I was forced to wear that for several years

John Paschal
9 years ago
Reply to  Jon

Man. With regard to the glove, that’s some rough luck.

That’s like Scratchy being forced to use Itchy’s toothbrush. Well, not exactly, but you get the idea. I’m guessing that glove ended up in a landfill somewhere, yes?

Mister D
9 years ago

Jason Varitek: Starts fights without taking his mask off. “Yo kid you see ah boy Varitek totally wore A-Fraud out by staying in that headlock so long!”

Dave
9 years ago

I’m an enormous Dodger fan, and even I cannot believe that Steve Garvey’s name hasn’t been mentioned here yet. The only things I’ve encountered that are more fake than Steve Garvey are Brian Williams’ war stories and Manti Teo’s girlfriend. They put the guy in a lineup with Lopes, Russell, Yeager, Baker, Wynn, Smith, and Cey, but we were told to believe he was good because of his RBI total? I’d rather see Manny Ramirez at a Dodger reunion.

John Paschal
9 years ago
Reply to  Dave

Hey, not so fast! Garvey — American’s original Ken Doll — has been mentioned more than once by now. After all this time, that dude is still on people’s nerves.

Tim
9 years ago

Prior to this year’s postseason, it was A.J. Pierzynski. He’s just a dick. As a KC fan, watching Hunter Strickland lose his mind on the biggest stage of the game, after getting lit up by the light hitting Royals and yelling at Salvy Perez, easily one of the most likeable players in the game, cemented that idiot’s place as my least favorite player. If you’re gonna talk that kind of sh!t, at least be a half decent pitcher.

John Paschal
9 years ago
Reply to  Tim

Yeah, that was a bad look. Awful.

As a group, big league baseball players probably aren’t the most introspective lot, but I’m sure that guy wakes up each day with no small measure of regret.

Tim
9 years ago

While I despise the whole birther thing and everything that it stood for, Luke Scott was actually a pretty nice person while he was here in Baltimore. In particular, he took Felix Pie under his wing and tried to help him acclimate to the majors. He was fan-friendly and whatnot. Sure, he was a ted nugent-variety political psycho, but if you scratch half these guys you’ll find similarly weird stuff underneath the boilerplate.

John Paschal
9 years ago
Reply to  Tim

I don’t doubt there’s some truth to that. Human beings are complicated creatures. Few of us are wholly good or wholly awful. Conspiratorial worldviews and basic human decency probably aren’t mutually exclusive. Truthers love their children too.

JW
9 years ago

Roger Clemens: throwing a broken bat back at the batter and then issuing a BS excuse. Total arrogance. I think I would have liked him if he’d just said, “I think I ‘Roid Rage!”

Ruben Amaro Jr. — only because he was once a player before he ruined my favorite team.

Incitatus
9 years ago

Full disclosure upfront: I’m a Yankees fan. I realize this makes all of my opinions invalid in the eyes of most, but here’s a few names that come to mind that weren’t mentioned in the article:

Carl Pavano: a smirking, self-satisfied, don’t-try bust. All that money down the drain. And then he has the audacity to pitch well for the Twins after his NYY contract ended.

Armando Benitez – The beanball he threw at Tino Martinez was the worst kind of sore-loser nonsense. He gave up the lead because the previous batter hit a home run, so he throws at the next guy and then gives the “bring it on” gesture to the Yankee bench? Third-graders are better sports than that.

Julio Lugo – domestic abuser who got away with it. (Then he went to the Red Sox, not that I needed any more reasons to hate him.)

Andrew
9 years ago

Aaron Heilman. The 2006 Mets were the best team in baseball and then ran into some injuries at the end of the season. But thanks to their lineup and an incredible game 7 catch by Endy Chavez, they still were in position to go to the World Series. Until Aaron Heilman came along and grooved one to Yadier Molina (back when Yadier Molina couldn’t hit). Beltran catches the heat for striking out looking with the bases loaded to end that game and the Mets’ season, but I’ll always loathe Aaron Heilman for serving up that dinger. The Mets have had a lot of players over the years who Mets fans, myself included, grew to despise. But no one’s more despicable than Heilman.

Rusty
9 years ago

I hate Chipper Jones. Always have. Always will. Nothing personal. Just hate him. He needs to get punched. He gets no loyalty points from me because he stayed his entire career in Atlanta. Why should he have left? They were paying him well and the media never called him out for his mistakes or not ever showing up in big games. Nobody seems to remember him losing the 2012 Wild Card game because of his crap defense and awful offense. Nope, but they sure remember the infield fly call.
Congrats on your one championship, buddy. Now go listen to more people about how Sandy Hook never happened.

John Paschal
9 years ago
Reply to  Rusty

Yeah, I completed this piece before all that Chipper Jones nonsense. Otherwise, I might have included him on my roster. I guess I’ll give him points for apologizing, but man, what kind of person could possibly believe that claptrap? It’s just unforgivably cruel, disrespectful and ignorant.

Mike
9 years ago

Fernando Vina. Albert Belle gave him what he had coming.

Big Daddy V
9 years ago

Alex Rodriguez is not just my favorite player, but also, one cannot deny, the most talented baseball player in all of history. Everything about him is just so amazing, and I hope that one day he finds a plastic surgeon that will allow him to realize his dream of becoming a centaur.

My most hated person: Anyone who was ever named Closer for the Tigers. A special hate goes out to Todd Jones, who was so unbelievably terrible at getting hitters out, but managed to keep his job for 5 years, and then was BROUGHT BACK at age 38 to anchor the bullpen of a playoff team. My kingdom for just one of the guys from the Royals’ pen.

hopbitters
9 years ago
Reply to  Big Daddy V

“…I hope that one day he finds a plastic surgeon that will allow him to realize his dream of becoming a centaur.”

It shouldn’t be too hard. He’s already got the back end covered.

John Elway
9 years ago
Reply to  hopbitters

Hay hopbitters, LMHAO!!!!

Just neighing.

Andrew
9 years ago

I am a lifelong Twins fan, and I was an especially big fan during the years in which they’d shoot themselves in the foot by signing or playing awful players like Livan Hernandez, Tony Batista, and Ramon Castro instead of playing their young players.

I hate Juan Castro. I hate that he’s awful at hitting and has no range at shortstop. I hate that the Twins gave him over 400 plate appearances to do his 60 OPS+ thing when Jason Bartlett and his superior range and bat were languishing in AAA or on the bench. I was absolutely delighted that he was last in bbref’s Elo ratings for the longest time (sadly, Greg Dobbs has usurped the throne).

The hatred came to a head in a game in which Castro dropped a routine pop-up. I don’t remember if it was even a particularly meaningful moment in the game, or if the game was in any way important, but the Twins internet crowd I was in with latched onto it.

Good night, sweet prince. http://imgur.com/BywWdT8

hopbitters
9 years ago

Cobb was no choir boy, but he at least mellowed with age.

A-Rod is an easy target, but he’s such a pathetic thing, it’s hard to even regard him as anything other than a petulant child.

Clemens is beyond arrogant. The bat thing was inexcusable.

I’d like to hate Carl Pavano, but I just take comfort in the fact that he’ll have injured himself again by the time I finish this sentence.

Carl Everett is another easy target, but he’ll always have the redeeming quality of his banter with Shaughnessy.

John Rocker should be left to quietly fade into oblivion. The others at least had some distinction on the field besides being jerks.

People who annoyed me more when their playing days were over: Joe Torre, Joe Morgan, Joe Torre, Tim McCarver, Joe Torre

Curt Schilling wins for me, though. The on-field stuff/arrogance/grandstanding was bad enough, but the whole 38 Studios fiasco affected (and continues to affect) an awful lot of people.

John Paschal
9 years ago
Reply to  hopbitters

Quality list, hopbitters.

Gus
9 years ago

JC Romero is to me the worst. He pops a positive in September 2008. He admits he went to the GNC, loaded up on andro because he felt fatigued in the dog days of August, which of course is exactly how you are supposed to feel if you are the lefty in the pen for a team in contention.

Romero waits and games the system so that his appeal is filed — but not heard — so he can play in the 2008 World Series against a Rays team that struggles against lefties. Romero wins two of the four games for the Phillies, then drop his appeal and serves his suspension in 2009. Hard to be more cynical than that.

I believe it to be the only time in major league history where a player tested positive and played while the benefits of the PEDs were potentially in his system. Romero was a juiced played, everbody knew it and nobody in Philadelphia saw a damn thing wrong with it. Screw you JC Romero and Charlie Manuel (who didn’t have to put him on the WS roster, but did so).

Gus
9 years ago

Add: The only time in major league POSTSEASON history

Jesse
9 years ago

A few nominees not on the list:

Raul Mondesi
Torii Hunter–always thought he was just a bigoted, paranoid, conspiracy-theorist jerk disguised as Mr. Niceguy
David Wells
John Kruk
Cecil Fielder

John Paschal
9 years ago
Reply to  Jesse

Tune in tomorrow!

dgrussel
9 years ago

David Ortiz: That incident where he smashed the shit out of the Orioles dugout phone and almost took his own teammates heads off in the process is seared in my mind of just absolute shock in how someone could react to a strikeout.

http://www.si.com/mlb/strike-zone/2013/07/28/watch-dugout-phone-suffers-david-ortizs-wrath

John Paschal
9 years ago
Reply to  dgrussel

Yeah, Ortiz is definitely on my list. His list of transgressions is long. Seriously, Papi, this is a team sport; is one little base hit really that important to you and your legacy, especially after the outcome of the game is already decided?

Sheesh.

But I left him off for a few reasons:

1) I had already dumped on him in a NotGraphs post last year, and it would’ve felt like piling on.

2) All told, this two-part piece is 9,000 (!!!!) words in length; gotta cut somewhere.

3) I hoped that readers would fill in the blanks, and boy, have they! Sweet.

Luke Cavanagh
9 years ago

Eddie f–king Gaedel. Take a swing already you ducking little bastard.

bucdaddy
9 years ago
Reply to  Luke Cavanagh

Laughing here.

Edward
9 years ago

Rod Barajas. What’s funny is, I couldn’t remember his name so I had to look up the 2007 Phillies on Retrosheet. It was a game against the Marlins that year that he let a Marlin slide through his legs on a play at the plate. I never before or since was as angry about a baseball game as I was that night. A few pitches later, Brett Myers blew out his shoulder or something and was out for a few months (Note:I was indifferent to Brett Myers back then). I literally cursed Barajas every time is punk ass face showed up on my TV screen long after he left the Phillies. When I looked up his name again, I got angry all over again. Thanks a lot.

Jeff
9 years ago

Cameramen seemed to take perverse pleasure in zooming in on Wilson Alvarez’s face as his mouth worked on endless balls of spit between pitches. He couldn’t or wouldn’t stop spitting. I hated a lot of the usual guys that any Twins fan disliked over the years (Tommy Herr, Ron Davis, Knoblauch), but I seethed whenever White Sox-era, goddamn disgusting Alvarez was pitching on TV.

Innocent Bystander
9 years ago

I can’t even comprehend how I got 88.1% of the way into the article before seeing the name: Curt Schilling. How is that possible? Showing up his teammates, making up stuff about other players, breaking QuesTec, lying to Congress, pouring ketchup on his sock, stealing half of Randy Johnson’s World Series MVP, ripping off Rhode Island, helping ruin Sunday Night baseball. And I’m sure I have missed something! He’s the worst.

John Paschal
9 years ago

Preachin’ to the choir, IB.

Actually, I reckoned that someone would come to his defense. But … nope!

Not yet, anyway.

David P. Stokes
9 years ago

Just sticking to active players, it’s Ryan Braun hands down for me. It’s not so much that he used PEDs, or even that he denied it until it wasn’t possible to do so anymore–it’s the way he tried to throw other people under the bus to cover himself that puts him here for me.

John Paschal
9 years ago

Agreed, absolutely.

Pete
9 years ago

Brian McCann-fun police

Paul G.
9 years ago

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

Then again, that turned whiny Anakin Skywalker into ultra-cool Darth Vader. Well, cool other than the massive body count, general cruelty, and taking orders from which I assume was a shar pei, not to mention making the Star Wars franchise so lucrative that Jar-Jar Binks happened. And the Star Wars Holiday Special. And Han shot second. And the Ewoks movies. And sand hatred. AAAAAAAAAH!

Sorry, I know this is about baseball but I like to focus my hatred on fictional characters. It is healthier that way. Bleep you, Jack Parkman!

Anyway.

I dunno. I had a real serious dislike of Pedro Martinez after the Don Zimmer incident, but I got over it especially since Don admitted it was his fault in the first place. For the record, it was a half decent snapmare. Too bad Pedro didn’t try to go for the cover, as I’m sure Zim would have rolled him up for the pin, perhaps giving him a wedgie in the process. Baseball needs more wedgies. The world needs more wedgie pins. It would have been epic, no doubt leading up to a tag-team rematch at Wrestlemania featuring Randy “The Macho Man” Savage, Mr. T, and Bud Selig. And probably Pete Rose in a chicken costume going through a table or some such as that seems what Pete does these days.

I also had a dislike of Dave Righetti when he was the Yankees closer. It always seemed that if a rookie pitcher was in line for his first major league win, Dave would find a way to blow that save in some horrific fashion. I look at his stats and, darn it, he was a good pitcher, but golly if I was present he seemed to save his lousy stuff for my audience. Though frankly that is rather awesome that he would care to do so, given there were so many other fans he could make feel special in that way. Aw. Sweet. If I met him today I would give him a hug. And he would probably give me a restraining order, suitable for framing. Nothing says you care like legal documents. Wonder if I could get him to sign it in exchange for not shaving any of his pets and/or shrubbery.

I was also in the audience for the Madonna blow-up doll gift to Jose Canseco at Yankee Stadium. Not sure how that reflects on me personally – I was probably listening more to Mariah Carey, Amy Grant, and Michael Bolton at the time – but I sense there was not a lot of love there. Though frankly the bleacher creatures were probably giving the most loving relationship advice possible as Sean Penn, Guy Ritchie, and, let’s be honest, Madonna can attest. I don’t think I ever hated Canseco, though I really disliked the A’s at the time, but if I did the whole Choi Hong-man MMA match was the antidote. Watching the man try to fight a 7′ 2″ Korean monster just melts away any ill-will.

And I leave you with this deep thought.

All you need is love.
All you need is love.
All you need is love, love.
Love is all you need.

Then again John ended up with Yoko. They seemed happy though. Take that for what you will and proceed with Part II if that seems right… or wrong. Your choice!

John Paschal
9 years ago
Reply to  Paul G.

Paul G., you magnificent bastard.

RFEthan148
9 years ago

I’d also add the horribly misogynistic douchebag Matt Garza and the complete douche C.J. Wilson.

I also have a personal grudge against Kole Calhoun.

John Paschal
9 years ago
Reply to  RFEthan148

Partial spoiler alert: tune in tomorrow.

MDBuc
9 years ago

Pete Rose.

Can’t stand him. Hated him before he was busted for gambling, like him less since then.

John Paschal
9 years ago
Reply to  MDBuc

Good hitter; not an entirely likable guy.

John Paschal
9 years ago

I don’t have time – and it would be a bit gratuitous, no? – to respond to every comment, but I’m glad that this piece has inspired such an ardent, sometimes poignant, sometimes hilarious response. You folks know how to string together some great sentences, and I’ve enjoyed reading them. Much obliged. I hope it’s been cathartic and enlightening for you.

For me, it’s been incredibly interesting, educational and entertaining. Thanks, everybody.

Gil Renard
9 years ago

Juan Primo. I showed him!

mustbunique
9 years ago
Reply to  Gil Renard

Now do you care?

Jason
9 years ago

Chad Curtis was just a douchebag when he was a player.

Then he molested some high school girls.

He wins.

John Paschal
9 years ago
Reply to  Jason

Sheesh, yeah, I sort of forgot about that despicable creature. (Maybe that’s for the best, yeah?) Similar to his behavior in the Rangers locker room, maybe he’ll attempt to dictate the music his fellow prisoners listen to. We’ll see how that works out.

Zack Greinke
9 years ago

Carlos Quentin. He broke my collarbone.

John Paschal
9 years ago
Reply to  Zack Greinke

He sure did!

But let’s let bygones be bygones. You two should go out for fish tacos.

PPP
9 years ago

Cole Hamels is the worst, for 2 reasons:

1. The way he hit Bryce Harper on purpose because the media was hyping him up. It’s stupid rookie treatment bull**** anyway, and, even worse, it wasn’t even Harper who did anything wrong.

2. He’s too pretty. People paid $20 million per year to play baseball should not also have the luxury of looking good.

Dave
9 years ago

Please the Big Poopi heads my list but I do have to be fair. At a Rays spring training game he tirelessly stayed late and inked every kids autograph while telling the autograph sellers to Eff off. Of course they resorted to sending kids to get his autograph and some how Big Poopi found it easy to tell and 8 year old to eff off.

mustbunique
9 years ago

Mike Fiers for hitting Giancarlo in the face.

The wall in the Kingdome for shortening Griffey’s prime. Be softer in the past, wall that doesn’t exist anymore!

JP, I know exactly what you mean by BABIP slappers. Luis Sojo vs Pedro. I don’t know why or how, but Luis Sojo could always just slap one off of Pedro any time he was up.

Alex Rios. Nobody wants your autographs any more.

Bobby Valentine. Wow. You are the pits. Invented the wrap sha right. What a clown.

Scooter the Baseball on Fox. Terrible. Get out of here. Akin to the Microsoft paperclip helper guy and the Fox football robots who are secretly going to take over the world, there is just no need.

National broadcasts of my home team’s games any game. Puke. Go away.

Personal grudge: Can’t stand Andy Pettitte. Looked really annoying, always shook his dangling left arm before a pickoff attempt, and nobody cared about his PED usage. Using PED’s to recover from an injury is still as bad as any other usage.

John Paschal
9 years ago
Reply to  mustbunique

Well said, MBU. (Can I call you MBU?)

Alex Rios just makes me sad. He should be so good, but he just … isn’t.

Scooter the Baseball? Reserved for him, is a special place in mascot hell.

mustbunique
9 years ago
Reply to  John Paschal

Of course, if I can call you JP. Thanks for the response, I am impressed by your dedication to replying to comments both here and at Banknotes. Keep up the good stuff, it is great reading the responses you got both in your article and from commenters!