Posted By:
AnonymousA lot of ways to approach "worst" :
Guy you least want on your team kind of "worst" :
maybe Hal Chase.... although the worst player banned was probably Fred McMullen (paid to throw the series even though he couldn't have made a difference either way)
Baseball players on cards who really weren't "baseball players" therefore maybe they are the worst:
Eric Lindros, Michael Jordan, John Elway, any US president although only GHW Bush (who played college ball at Yale) actually appears on cards as a baseball player and maybe even Jim Thorpe (although I bet he was tough on the bases)
Famous for being the worst:
Mendoza (of the "Mendoza line" fame); Bob Uecker (really they were both in majors to be THAT bad)
"Worst" in thew sense of worst human being:
Poor John Rocker put himself in this category with his mouth although he probably wasn't/isn't that bad a guy; again Hal Chase may warrant a mention here even if he was among the greatest glove-men to ever play 1st base and yes Ty Cobb and Cap Anson according to many people -- I might go with the early 20th century player whose name escapes me who had mental problems and committed some rather grisly murders. As I recall Asa Brainard from the 1860's and 1870s wound up being quite awful (there is a book called something like "the worst Pitcher's ever" that is quite enthralling and details Brainard's career -- he started off great; I think he appears on some prized cabinets with the Wright Bros.)... Carl Mays warrants a (dis)honorable mention although the guy in CUbs organization who threw at the player in the on-deck circle (nearly blinding him)when he was in college gets my vote over Mays who probably didn't mean to do much more than ROger Clemens, Pedro Martinez or Nolan Ryan when he killed Ray Chapman (another facinating book is called "The Pitch that Killed" about Chapman and Mays)