There’s Bad, There’s Awful, And Then There’s Evil

The genesis of this week’s By the Numbers column came when I was marveling at the fact that Willie Bloomquist has been in the major leagues for 11 years and has played more than 850 games.

Bloomquist is not a good major-league player. He has some value, in that he can play multiple positions adequately well and that he isn’t as bad as some guys who are in the majors. But I’m continually amazed by some of the players who manage to hang around and keep getting sent out onto the field.

Like this guy, who somehow managed to appear in 1,103 major-league games over the past 17 seasons. He’s the focus of the column, but even he wasn’t as awful as this guy and his .201 on-base percentage.

And yet, even he wasn’t as abhorrent as his own brother, who you can read about here, although they buried the lead in the article. This guy wasn’t an awful player, but HE MURDERED HIS FAMILY. Despite that, he received two votes for the Hall of Fame in 1937, and one each in 1938 and 1939. Geez, by comparison, a little steroids use doesn’t seem so bad.