Adam Dunn tribute post; the Godfather of Diamond Hoggers

This blog needs to pay homage to it’s great Godfather, and today we do that with an Adam Dunn post to end all Adam Dunn posts.

There is really no one way to begin this article on the man they call “Dunner” or “The Big Donkey”. He is no simple player to sum up, and for us to recap all the memories that we’ve had of him would honestly take up way more time than you have to read it; or we have to write it. Let’s just start off by saying, since Adam Dunn came into the league, we’ve had a serious man crush on him, and I do mean that in as heterosexual of a way as possible.

Dunn is our kind of guy. He doesn’t take life too seriously, and for him to say that he takes anything serious–including his craft–is a definite untruth. He’s a big 27 year old kid in a giant 6’6″ 275 pound frame. A country strong texan, he appealed from the very beginning when he burst on the scene lining a single off Matt Clement for his first major league hit. He’d go on to hit 19 homeruns (in 66 games) that year in limited action as a 21 year old. We fell in love with him and never looked back. Dunn had the power to go yard every single at-bat. This type of raw power, we really thought was exciting. We didn’t want to have a favorite player who was a pitcher, appearing once every 5th day. We didn’t want a guy who hits singles and doubles and steals bases. We wanted a guy who was the whole fucking show. A guy who could make the meats and cheeses rain down from the sky in a plentiful amount. A guy with the power of an oxen, and the hooves of an oxen. This guy for us was Adam Dunn.

In the first game we ever saw him play, he ripped a mammoth 2-run homer at old Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. Since then, it seems like we’ve seen him homer more than any other player we’ve ever seen live. It’s like he knows when we’re at the stadium, and what we came for. Sure, he’ll strike out, sometimes in 3 pitches, but he usually delivers with a blast that sends us home happy. We’ve even seen him hit the ball out of Great American Ballpark off John Smoltz. You’ve never seen balls hit like that one. Dunn also holds the dubious distinction of being the only player to ever hit a ball into the next state. No shit, that is right. His 535 foot homerun off Jose Lima back into 2004 went out of the stadium, bounced off the road, into the Ohio river and floated on a piece of driftwood over to the shore of Kentucky. That’s big time fucking power. He’s Paul Bunyan with a baseball bat. He’s Johnny Appleseed with a microphone during interviews. He’s our Donkey, for better or worse, and we love him for it.

Back to the fact we wanted to pick a player that was an everyday player. Dunn has delivered in that area as well. When the Lord created Adam Dunn and gave him all that raw power, he made him a tough son of a bitch as well. This is another thing we absolutely love about Dunn. If a body part of his is hurting, he’d just as well assume you cut it off rather than him come out of a game. With all the ballplayers in MLB this day in age collecting paychecks to be on the DL, Dunn is the picture perfect serviceman to his ballclub. He’s had one stint on the DL, in his 3rd year in the big leagues. He actually hurt himself hitting a homerun in his final at bat of the season, the first walk-off homerun of his career. Dunn reached 40 homeruns in 2005 only to come out after the season in the winter and tell the media that he’d played most of the season with a broken wrist. In his career he’s amassed seasons of 158, 161, 160, 160 and 86 games played this season. The guy is consistent and no matter what, he shows up to play every single day, collect his at-bats, and add to his statistics.

As much as we’d like to say we have, we’ve never actually hung out with Dunn, but we’ve came close. One of our frequent stops is the Hoffbrahaus in Newport, Kentucky. We like the atmosphere and seemingly bottomless beers that can’t give you a hangover, they’re German ale’d you know. Upon going one time with some buddies, and getting hammered, I waltzed up to the bartender filling my huge mug and asked a question.

“You ever get any Reds players in here?”

“Just a few here and there, one of them comes in here all the time,”

“Oh yeah, who is that?” as if I had to ask.

“Dunn. Comes in and heads right where you’re standing and drinks till we stop serving these. He likes the premiums.”

The premiums is this place’s version of Budweiser, heavy and gets you so fucked up you don’t remember your name. What else for Dunn you know? Then there was the time we hung out with Jerry Narron, Dunn’s former manager. He told us that Dunn has got big time power, and is a great kid. He said he really enjoys having him on the ballclub. Yeah, yeah, Jerry. We know all that.

“But does he work hard?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t say he works that hard. The most running he does is for last call at the bar at the end of the night,” Narron said with a smile. Man we fucking loved that.

Another time, we were talking with the bat-boy before the game. He basically confirmed that Dunn hates signing autographs, which we knew. He basically said there was no chance of him signing anything for us or any little kids, he doesn’t waste his time with that. Fair enough. But then we said we knew Dunn dipped, as did we, and as did the bat boy.

“Yeah so what kind of chew does Dunner like? He’s a ballplayer, so I’m guessing he likes Cope (copenhagen) right?”

“Yup. He likes fine cut Copenhagen. That’s all he chews,” said the bat boy.

Aside from Dunn giving us actually giving me and my buddies his tin of dip
=”font-family:arial;font-size:85%;”>, he’s been chewing and playing ball since we’ve taken it up as a hobby. When me and my other college roomate decided to make Diamond Hoggers, in honor of the game we love and the throwback players that chew some “Hoggers”, Dunn was named the Godfather of our baseball blog. He also does all the other typical things that a true ballplayer would do. Gets fucked up, lives on a diet of beer, bags lots of chicks (before his marriage-boo!), and you know–is just a big dumbass in general.

When talking about Dunn and chicks, I had the opportunity to hear of a few good stories I enjoyed with him and some um….females. The first goes like this. Me and my buddy (later 30’s) were runners for a law firm in Cincinnati, every day we’d go to the Cincinnati courthouse and work on documents for the firm. We’d talk often and tell stories. He knew about my fondness of big #44 on the Reds. There was also a female attorney that was often in our view at this courthouse, and I shit you not, she was one of the better looking women I’ve ever seen. She looked exactly like Carla Gugino–you know who that is and if you don’t look it up on Google, you’ll understand. My buddy Robert says to me one day:

“Hey man, you know that female attorney we always see? Well I was talking to her the other day and she was kind of upset about your boy Dunn,” Robert said.

“No shit? Are you messing with me? What did she say?” I was interested. Don’t tell me he….

“Yeah man I swear to you. She was on the steps having a cigarette and she said he drove her back to smoking. She said he fucked her once (in so many words) and never called her again. True story.”

Now, Dunner drops this woman at the drop of a hat after getting what he wants, and moves on to bigger and better things. Unreal, I can’t believe he did this to this girl. Seriously. You should have seen her. Carla Gugino II, I tell you that for a fact.

The next story is also derived from that very same courthouse rumor mill. I’m sitting there and telling all the folks there that I’m heading to the game afterwards.

“Hey Clint who’s your favorite player on the Reds?” this girl clerk asked, who was my age. (Her father Bob Bettinghouse, was the architecht of the Reds ballpark).

“Dunn. Dunn’s always been my favorite,” I said proudly.

“Ewwwwwww. Dunn?!?!?! Ewwww he’s gross. He’s a slut!” she said back.

Now I couldn’t let her off the hook there. I saw information I felt I was entitled to, so I kept it going.

“What do you mean he’s a slut?” I said with a chuckle, knowing exactly what she meant.

“Well we were at a club and he was hitting on my friend (who was 17), and he went home with her and screwed her, and she never heard from him again. He’s a slut!”

But he’s a slugger. Sluggers do two things, they hit homeruns, and swing for the fences in life as well as on the field….aka fuck em’ and leave em. I didn’t tell her that but it was my thought. Good ol’ Dunner. He was a chip off the old block. A frat boy (who probably thinks frats are for fags) in the Major Leagues.

The one final Dunn tale I’ll give you is when we were sitting out in the moon deck/sun deck in right field one day. Girl behind us is talking about how fun Dunn and Jason LaRue were on the 4th of July.

“Tell me what happened, tell me about it,” I just went for the kill.

“Well me and my friends were at this Hooters over in Mason on 4th of July and Dunn and LaRue were there. They ended up getting really drunk with us and after the place closed down we stayed there with them and we all kept drinking. By the end of the night, Dunn and Larue beat us on a bet that they’d wear some of the waitresses HOOTER’S shirts and sure enough they both put them on and hung out with them on the rest of the night, it was sooo funny!”

Funny indeed.

To sum it all up, if this is Dunn’s last month or year as a Cincinnati Red, he’ll always remain our favorite player and a guy that has touched our hearts for the above stated reasons. Dude swings for the fences, hits arcade style homeruns, chews tabacky, drinks like a bafoon and acts like one as well, and he is a hound dog for the ladies, or was.

This, is why Adam Dunn is the Godfather of Diamond Hoggers. He stands for all that this blog is for.