Adam Dunn in Dodger Blue?

We read on ESPN’s front page tonight that the Dodgers have rang Adam Dunn with an interest to acquire his services. Not cool. Not cool at all.

And Dunn is probably excited about it. Thinking about all that green that Chavez Rivine could bring him. But it’s so not Dunn. Dunn is an avid fisherman. Wonder how the waters are out in SoCal? You can sit and watch the fish disintegrate in front of your very eyes.

Then we think back to an article we read about Dunn in Sports Illustrated back in 2002. It really made us like Dunn more then we even did when he was a rookie. He was a good ol’ boy in every sense of the word. Somewhere, in all the millions and all the bright lights; that got lost. An excerpt from that article:

One day this past winter Cincinnati Reds outfielder Adam Dunn, 22 years old and proud to be a lifelong Porter Rican—as some townsfolk jokingly call themselves—stopped at La Casita for his favorite meal: chicken fajita nachos and an iced tea. The next day he again stopped at La Casita for chicken fajita nachos and an iced tea. And the next day. And the next…. For 15 straight days Dunn made the quarter-mile drive from his parents’ house to La Casita, sat down and ordered chicken fajita nachos and an iced tea. He wasn’t being superstitious. He just likes the food.

The basics of life make Dunn, the Reds’ slugging leftfielder and emerging star, a happy man. Prada and Porsche and pommes souffles? As Dunn likes to say, in his best Johnny Cash drawl, “Heeeeelllll no.” Though he got an $800,000 signing bonus from the Reds after they selected him in the second round of the 1998 amateur draft, will make a healthy $260,000 this season and, if last year’s production—19 homers and 43 RBIs in only 66 games—is an indicator, should collect superstar dollars for years to come, Dunn describes himself as “a small-town redneck hick.” He even whips out a canister of snuff from his back pocket to prove it.

Dunn owns four suits, all of which he has purchased within the past year, but has worn only two. During the off-season his daily schedule went something like this: hunt, fish, hunt again, maybe fish a little more, eat chicken fajita nachos at La Casita, fish again, three hours of PlayStation, hunt, go four-wheeling, eat dinner at home, hunt and then sleep (all the while dreaming of hunting and fishing). While most of his Porter peers can’t wait to be able to afford to leave home, Dunn is content to continue occupying a small bedroom in the house of his parents, Skip, a welding-equipment salesman, and Pat, a stay-at-home mother. Seeing the 6’6″, 260-pound mass of muscle lumber through the modest ranch-style home is like watching a water buffalo squeeze through a pipe. “He could move,” says Dunn’s friend Brian Peters, “but he’d rather have his parents pay the bills and do his laundry.”

The mexican food might not be bad in LA. But you’re going to have a tough time getting your pickup truck and cowboy boots to qualify as a passing act out there. It’s no joke. Even the sheriff isn’t afraid to bury someone in the desert. Dunn will stand out like a swollen, sore thumb in those uniforms; while the Cincinnati threads were quite slimming.

We admit, we’d be bitter no matter where Dunn moved on to. Like thinking back to that old high school sweetheart who you’ve recently heard got married. You’d always like to believe that you were the one that meant the most to them; even if that isn’t the case at all.