Bad Baseball Hall of Fame

In honor of King Kaufman’s tribute to Neifi Perez, I was thinking it might be fun to start our own “Bad Baseball Hall of Fame.” I think it’s important to start, though, with a few thoughts about what it means to be a bad baseball player. And, for that, I think we need to start with Gookie Dawkins. Gookie Dawkins is probably the worst hitter I have ever seen in the Major Leagues. I say this with admiration — it seems impossible to me that someone with Gookie Dawkins swing could make it to the Major Leagues. It looked from affair to be an almost perfect up-and-down swing, like Dawkins was trying to ring the bell at one of those state fair sledgehammer games. He had 110 plate appearnces in the big leagues, struck out a third of them, hit .163 and never managed anything beefier than a double. With that swing, I consider this to be an overachievement. And yet … Gookie Dawkins in the great scheme of things is a fabulous hitter. He hit 81 minor leag...