Ken Griffey Jr.
Although he often had a prickly relationship with the media, multiple redditors report Griffey Jr. was a great guy as long as he didn’t see any cameras rolling.

Ken Griffey JR. came into the country club I worked at and had drinks in the bar after he played golf with some people. I didn’t talk much to him but he was a lot nicer than most of the members that go there.” JubilantJake

Joe Girardi
The Yankees manager has been long known as a class act. Eahls remembers a meeting with the then-Yankee player:

Right before the ’96 World Series was set to start, my parents were in a restaurant and saw Joe Girardi come in with his wife. To put it mildly the 8 year old version of me was baseball crazy, and Girardi was by far my favorite player.
They called the babysitter and had her wake me up. I threw on a Yankee shirt and some sweatpants, and headed over with them to the restaurant.
The plan was to wait by the bar and ask him for an autograph when he was ready to leave. I’m not sure what tipped him off – whether it was a little kid sitting by the bar in a Yankee shirt and sweatpants, or the fact that I was probably staring at him – but after a few minutes he smiled and waved me over.
Not only did he sign my t-shirt, but he spent about ten minutes in the middle of his meal talking to me about baseball, the Yankees, and Mike Stanley (the first thing I said to him was that I thought he was better than Mike Stanley – WAR has since proven me wrong).
I still have the shirt framed on my wall, but as time passes what sticks with me was that he took the time to talk to me.

Raul Ibanez
Ibanez is another guy who has a reputation for niceness that was confirmed on reddit. Or, as Smerdykov wrote:

I’ve never heard anything but this about Raul. And I don’t just mean “he’s nice,” I mean, “He is literally the nicest person in the league.”

Ozzie Smith
The Hall of Famer was called out repeatedly by Cardinal fans for acts of kindness. DavidFreeze reports:

My older sister and Niko (ozzies son, of American idol fame) were in the same dance studio. As a young baby Ozzie held me, was super nice to my mom, who I’m sure was annoyingly fan girling, and cheered extremely loudly for my sister, who was the youngest girl in the studio. My mom and sister swear he is the nicest man they’ve ever met.

John Franco
Not only is the bullpen legend a nice guy, but he’s willing to endure boy bands for the sake of his children. According to Neckwrecker:

My sisters met John Franco at an N*SYNC concert. He was there with his daughters. He was a really nice guy and bought everyone souvenirs.

Roger Clemens
The seven-time Cy Young winner always seemed a bit gruff, but apparently he was a Teddy Bear when it came to his young fans.

I had a great experience with Roger Clemens as a kid. Me and my brother saw him before the game and he came over, lifted both of us onto the rail and told my mom exactly where to stand for the best picture. And he stuck around to talk to us too.

Johan Santana
Not only is the two-time Cy Young winner a good guy, but he shops at Ikea like the rest of us.

I met Johan Santana at the Ikea in Bloomington the day after he pitched against the Yankees in the 04 playoffs eliminating game. I was ten and I was with my mom, who went up to him and his wife and asked if I could talk to him. He said of course and so I spoke to him for like five minutes about baseball and the team that I was playing on at the time. I wasn’t expecting to see an MLB player at IKEA so the only thing I had to get autographed was our IKEA shopping list which he signed in pencil lol. Great guy. minneapolisboy

The redditors also dished on those they had unpleasant experiences with, and it should be no surprise Alex Rodriguez, AJ Pierzynski and Josh Beckett got a thumbs down for their churlish behavior.

There was also a great anecdote about the famously disagreeable Kirk Gibson trying to fight an entire hockey team of naked 14-year old boys because one of them had slammed a locker room door into him by mistake, and another about Wade Boggs being drunk and flubbing a speech. Because you can’t really have any discussion of the personality of baseball players without somebody confirming the legendary drunkenness of Wade Boggs.

Those were the big takeaways from an interview the All-Star shortstop, currently on the DL with a hip flexor, did with the Denver Post earlier this week.

Of course you’re not going to tell your hometown paper you want to be traded. Unless you’re some sort of maschists. And Tulowitzki‘s behavior over the last few weeks — including attending a Yankees game as a fan a couple weeks ago — suggests he would very much like to be somewhere else.

Additionaly, Tulowitzki is correct that something needs to change in Colorado since he should bring in quite a haul trading him is probably the best way to shake things up in mile high land.

The 29-year old is leading the NL in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging while playing a stellar shortstop. His contract, which calls for him to $20 million a year until 2019, and then drops down to $14 million for 2020, is perhaps the league’s most reasonable long-term deal. The only thing that keeps him from being the perfect player is his propensity to spend time on the DL.

If Tulo is dealt, here are the best and most likely landing spots.

Not ranked: New York Yankees
Tulowitzki caused quite a stir when he took in that Yankees game. (He was back east seeking a medical opinion on his hip flexor.) And obviously New York has a need for a shortstop, with future Hall of Famer Derek Jeter retiring this year. The problem is they just don’t have a lot of assets in the Bronx.  None of their minor leaguers crack the top 50 on the prospect lists, and the big club isn’t exactly beaming with young talent. Maybe they can get something done with a package built on the somehow-still-underrated Brett Gardner, or maybe the Rockies have interest the paper mache arm of Michael Pineda. Overall, we’re just not seeing it.

5. Los Angeles Dodgers
Incumbent shortstop Hanley Rameriz, a free agent-to-be, will be asking for a contract north of what is owed to Tulowitzki. The Dodgers would be wise to let him walk and then work out a trade for Tulo, who is the same age and superior in ever way. LA has three of the top prospects in the game in Joc Pederson, Corey Seager and Julio Urias. Two of them plus a second tier prospect — say Zach Lee – is a deal that benefits both teams.

4. New York Mets
The Mets also need a shortstop and, unlike the other Big Apple team, have young assets. They could put together a multi-prospect package headed with either Zack Wheeler, who’s already seen big league success, or fireballing righty Noah Syndergaard, who is one of the top prospects in the game. Not only do they get Tulo, but they do so at the expense of the Yankees, who have dominated the NYC baseball landscape for the past 20 years.

3. Boston Red Sox
The Red Sox are loaded with prospects — and that’s not even counting Xander Bogaerts and Jackie Bradley Jr,  who are already entrenched on the big club. They  also need to retool, as their 2013 World Series win is looking more like a fluke every day. Tulowitzki would be a great piece to start (quickly) building around, and they could deal for him and still have young talent left over.

2. Chicago Cubs
Their out-of-nowhere waiver claim of Cole Hamels suggests Epstein and company would be willing to add a big, relatively costly name to their rebuild. They have a fairly entrenched young shortstop in Starlin Castro and any deal with Colorado would depend on them either dealing him back or elsewhere. But if that works out, a package built around two of their big three infield prospects of Addison Russell and Kris Bryant and Javier Baez (who went off against the Rockies this MLB debut this week), probably gets them Tulo.

1. St. Louis Cardinals
There is something about Tulowitzki and his game that screams St. Louis. Trading for him would mean the Cardinals would have to move Johnny Peralta to third and then Matt Carpenter to first or the outfield.  But that’s doable when the reward is Tulo at short. The Rockies would certainly require Oscar Taveras.  If we were them we’d also want Trevor Rosenthal (to move to the rotation) and serviceable minor leaguer or two.

Darkhorse: Florida Marlins
While he doesn’t usually add salary, Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria has proved over the years he’s not dead set against it. The Marlins are shockingly still in the playoff race this year, and a 2015 roster which includes Giancarlo Stanton, Tulo and Jose Fernandez would absolutely be contenders. The likely cost would be Christian Yelich or Marcell Ozuna and then at least top prospect Andrew Heaney. But the two-year window it would give the team before Stanton hits free agency to poach another World Series would be priceless.

According to ESPN reporter TJ Quinn, the authorities have also uncovered information that link previously un-punished players to PEDs.

It will be at least a few weeks before those players will be publicly disclosed. But Quinn does have some information about them, and here is how he described on Twitter the new names that will be on the list of those who used Bosch’s services in violation of league rules.

Doesn’t sound like there are major names, but not borderline major leaguers, either. Fairly significant. Probably not more than a few.

Hmm. Well that would eliminate Robinson Cano and David Ortiz. Back in October of 2012, there were rumors that Cano was about to be suspended for PEDs. But it obviously never happened, and the reporter who’s tweet started the chatter apologized and made a donation to Cano’s charitable foundation.

Ortiz, who was never suspended for testing positive for PEDs in 2003, has long had the dirty needle pointed at him. This speculation has just intensified over the last few years, as the slugger has enjoyed an unusual (but not completely unprecedented) late-career surge.

But Quinn says no major names, and Ortiz and Cano are two of the biggest names in the game.

So, if Quinn’s sources are correct, who will the suspended players be?

Since we are a small, under-the-radar news sources, we’ve decided to recklessly speculate using two facts. 1) So far, everybody named in previous Biogenisis documents — whether they were suspended or not — had either ties to the Dominican Republic or Florida, the state Biogoensis is located. 2) Ten of the fourteen players suspended last year because of Biogensis were repped by ACES.

We came up with four players who are represented by ACES, have ties to either Florida or the Dominican Republic, and who are fairly significant Major Leaguers without being “major names. They are:

Joaquin Benoit (Dominican) Raul Ibanez (Florida) Mike Morse (Florida) Santiago Casilla  (Dominican.)

We again want to stress that, other than being repped by ACES, having Florida or Dominican ties, and being a solid player but not a huge star, there is *ABSOLUTELY NOTHING* to link any of these players to PEDs.

However, if any of them end up on the next suspension list, score one for simple pattern recognition.

But Verlander still has something Price, Anibal Sanchez, Rick Porcello and even Max Scherzer doesn’t: the love of Kate Upton, America’s busty sweatheart.

Upton and Verlander have been dating for a couple years now, and the 22-year old supermodel took in Monday’s game between the Detroit and the Yankees in New York. Verlander wasn’t pitching — New Yankee acquisition Brandon McCarthy out-dueled Scherzer 2-1 — so he was able to find the time get his main squeeze a souvenir.

Upton’s reaction is pretty priceless. That kind of expressiveness may allow Upton to move her nascent movie career beyond the role of eye candy she played in “The Other Woman” and “The Three Stooges.”

Throughout their relationship Upton and Verlander have proved to be quite the photogragenic pair. Here are some images of the lovebirds being all loving.

Upton cheers her hometown Orlando Magic. Verlander smiles arrogantly because he’s dating Kate Upton.

All lovey-dovey  at the 2014 GQ Super Bowl party in New York.

Looks like Kate approved of David Price even before he became her boo’s teammate.

When you are dating Kate Upton, it is hard to keep your eyes up.

Here the pair make themselves a part of baseball history by signing a seat at Fenway Park, where Verlander has had some success over the years.

Closer Casey Janssen was somewhat subtle with his dig at the front office in an interview with MLB.com.

For us not to do anything, most of us had some ideas that we were going to improve this club a little bit. It’s unfortunate we didn’t. At the same time, we just have to do what we have to do to win games and try to find ways to get into the playoffs. Yes, it was frustrating but we have to play tonight.

Slugger Jose Bautista was somewhat less subtle while talking to MLB.com, and dropped the D-word. Twice.

Of course it’s a little disappointing that we somehow weren’t able to get anything done, but everybody around us that’s in contention somehow–and even some teams that aren’t in contention, like the Red Sox–somehow figured it out. But there’s still time to get stuff done. We still have a pretty good team put together and we’re hoping to get the guys that are hurt back and that’ll be a good injection of talent for us down the road. … But it’s a little bit of disappointment.

Anthopoulos and the Blue Jays are no strangers to big deals. Before the 2013 season they pulled off one the biggest blockbusters of the last decade, acquiring Mark Buehrle, Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson and Emilio Bonifacio from the Marlins. Then, later that offseason, thye recieved reigning NL CY Young R.A. Dickey in a deal with the Mets, which sent over catching prospect Travis d’Arnaud, among others..

While those trades famously didn’t pay off in 2013, Beuhrle, Reyes and Dickey were big parts of the Blue Jays hot start in 2013. However, the Blue Jays have been four games under .500 since June 6, when they sat 38-24 and were six games in the lead in the American League East.

Thanks their current six game winning streak, they have fought their way back to just 1.5 games behind the division leading Orioles and control the second wild card spot. The Jays had been linked to Jon Lester, Alex Rios, Asdrubal Cabrera, David Price and Bartolo Colon heading up to the deadline but, as Bautista and Jansen lamented, none of them are coming to Canada.

There is still the waiver trade deadline of August 31 to make a deal and be able to use the acquired player in the postseason. Now it’s up to Janssen, Bautista and other Blue Jays to get over their disappointment, and keep their team in playoff contention until then.

But there is another just as important hot stove league that forms in the weeks before July 31,  the last day teams can trade a player without securing waiver rights.

As a fantasy owner you need to be on top of any potential summer hot stove league developments because a change of scenery can radically change the outlook for a player.

Hot stove talk is already heating up on Chicago’s north side. The Cubs are obviously going nowhere in 2014 and GM Theo Epstein has a stacked minor league system and a want to remake Chicago like he did the Red Sox. The team is reportedly listening to offers on starting pitchers Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel.

Samardzija, if you remember, came out like gangbusters, leading the league in ERA for most of the first two months of the season. However, he didn’t get his first win until May 26, thanks to the Cubbies anemic offense. He has two wins now, but his ERA has gone from 1.46 to 2.77 in the past few weeks. In fact, his numbers are very similar to Hammel, who has six wins along with a 2.81 ERA. .984 WHIP and 8.2 Ks per 9, and has quietly put together a pretty spectacular fantasy season.

But we still think it’s Samadzija who would benefit the most from a trade to a contender. The former Notre Dame football standout is playing for a contract this year and just has better stuff than Hammel. If we were a Hammel owner we’d actually be weary of him being shipped out because the well-traveled 31-year old has never pitched as well as he has during his first year with the Cubs.

The Mets ageless wonder Bartolo Colon is also starting to pop up in trade rumors. Last year, when he was a mere 40, he was darn near the American League Cy Young winner. He hasn’t been quite that good in Queens, but he is striking more batters out in 2014 and could see a bump in value if he’s moved to a better team, particularly one in the National League. Curtis Granderson, who’s been heating up lately, is another veteran the Mets might want to cut bait on, but his contract probably makes him untradable. There had been Twitter-sphere talk that New York was also looking to deal second baseman and stealthy base-stealer Daniel Murphy, but GM Sandy Alderson shot that down during a Q&A sessions with season ticket holders Saturday, for whatever that’s worth.

Phillies GM Reuben Amaro apparently doesn’t understand the difference between at-bats and plate appearances. Yes, really. Not the person I’d want running my team. However he’s inexplicably still pulling the strings in Philly and over the last couple weeks he’s indicated there may be a fire sale if his team continues their losing ways.

You can blame the Phillies old vets for the teams decline, because most of them are playing pretty well. However Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins both have no-trade protection and have indicated a strong preference to remain in Philadelphia. Although Rollins seemed to soften that stance a bit after setting the team’s all-time hit record this week.

Ryan Howard still has one of the most unmovable contracts in the game, Marlon Byrd continues his renaissance, but the 36-year old’s 2016 plate-appearance-based option might make him a tough sell, and Cliff Lee is currently injured.

Lee’s rehab is progressing and he’s about to start on a throwing program. If all goes well he should be back in a few weeks and would be the Phillies biggest trading chip if he can prove he’s healthy. And a healthy Lee on a contender would be a beautiful thing for any fantasy owner that currently has the left-hander stashed in their DL spot. (Ditto Rays ace David Price, who’s been pitching more to his ability as of late, and is about a 50-50 bet to be moved before the deadline.)

According to multiple sources, the first Phillies to be traded may well be closer Jonathan Papelbon. The notorious baseball jerk has learned to pitch with diminished velocity and has only given up one run in his last 25 appearances. He’s been linked to Detroit, who could use a closer now that there is increasing evidence their 39-year old incumbent Joe Nathan is done.

Like Papelbon, Huston Street and Chad Qualls have also exceeded expectations as a ninth inning men this season. And, like Papelbon, if we owned them in fantasy we would not want to see them traded to a contender.

Bad teams still generate plenty of save situations and closers are creatures of habit; you don’t necessarily want them to to have to pick up their lives and move to a different city mid-season. Papelbon would probably still be decent in Detroit, but Street, with his flyball tendencies, wants to be pitching in San Diego. Qualls, who’s been shockingly lights out, is only making $3 million this season.  So if he gets dealt to a contender they can afford to use him in a set up role, where he would lose all of his fantasy value.

They key is not to automatically assume a trade to a better team is a good thing. If you keep that in mind, and continue to monitor all the latest trade rumors, you can get a leg up in fake baseball.

Santana caught a break when most the Braves pitching staff went down, and he inked a one-year deal with Atlanta late in spring training. Drew returned to the Red Sox a couple weeks ago on a pro-rated one year deal after they had their own injury problems. That left Morales, and the speculation was that he wouldn’t sign until after the 2014 MLB entry draft because at that point he would no longer cost a team the draft pick.

The draft started last night, and according to Boras his client will sign in the next couple days. Here are the teams who maybe be interested in the switch-hitter slugger.

New York Yankees
Word is the Yankees told Boras to hold off a few more days on signing so they could evaluate the health of Carlos Beltran and Mark Teixeira, and would make an offer on Morales if they didn’t think one or both could be relied on going forward. Each switch-hitters played yesterday and even if one were to go down Morales seems like a questionable fit. The Bronx Bombers, who are looking less and less like contenders every day, are already an old and lumbering lineup and the rapidly aging and already lumbering Morales doesn’t seem like the answer.

Seattle Mariners
Seattle knows Morales well; he played for them last year. Since they could have always had him back without sacrificing a pick, why now? Well, the Mariners have been surprisingly competitive this year and would be in the wild card game if the postseason started today. And they are doing this with barely any production from either the first base or DH slot. A mid-season reunion would make a lot of sense , particularly if they don’t have to give Morales the long-term contract they were never interested in tendering him

Milwaukee Brewers
Boras threw this out there, but we’re not sure if it works. True, the Brewers have also been unexpectedly good and would clearly be in buy mode. However, third baseman Aramis Ramirez just came back from his hammy and hit a homer in his return. That means they can move Mark Reynolds across the diamond to first. Morales might be a somewhat of an offensive upgrade from Reynolds, at least the batting average department, and would be a hedge against Ramirez’s 36-year old tendons.  But there are serious questions about his defense and it’s unclear if the Brew Crew would be a better team overall with Morales in the lineup.

Texas Rangers
Once Prince Fielder went down, Morales to the Rangers started to make an awful lot of sense. Mitch Moreland has displayed a stunning lack of power for a first baseman who makes his home in Arlington and Texas is essentially playing .200 hitter Michael Choice at DH. But there hasn’t been much movement on this logical front. The Rangers are hovering around .500 and have been decimated with long-term injuries, suggesting they just might not be willing to add to their already team record $133 million payroll.

Oakland As
Billy Beane uncharacteristically gave closer Jim Johnson $10 million this off season, perhaps because there is no such thing as a terrible one year contract. (Although the wildly ineffective Johnson is testing that mantra.) So would the Moneyball A’s also go against type and shell out medium bucks to get Morales for the rest of the season? The best team so far in 2014 always operates under a pretty tight payroll, but Morales must be pretty tempting given that they are playing Alberto Callaspo and his middle infielders .OPS of .659 at DH.

Florida Marlins
It’s not that controversial Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria refuses to spend money. It’s that he won’t shell out his art dealer cash for bad teams. Now that they are in a tie for first place in the National League East, it’s safe to say the no-budget Fish are unexpectedly pretty good. Garrett Jones has been doing an adequate job at first base, but can’t be trusted against lefties and works better as a bench piece on a contender. Morales is Cuban, which is added bonus given the demographics of South Florida. Kendrys to the Marlins. You heard it here first.

If this was a week ago, the Dodgers could have called up Miguel Olivo, a catcher with 13 years of Big League experience, from Triple-A. However, they had to release him from the organization Friday after he bit off teammate Alex Guerrero’s ear in a dugout brawl.

But Ellis’s — or Guerrero’s — wasn’t even the strangest baseball injury of the week. That would belong to Phillies minor leaguer Jesse Biddle. Not only was Philadelphia no-hit by Beckett Sunday, but they saw their top pitching prospect miss his Double-A start because he got hit in the head with a hailstone! Below are baseball’s 25 strangest injuries.

25. Carlos Perez, Goofy Car Accident Perez’s promising career was partially derailed by injuries. The broken nose the hurler suffered in a car accident wasn’t really that big of a deal in a grand scheme of things. But the reason he crashed — he was trying to pass the team bus on the way to the stadium — does warrant mention.

24. Sammy Sosa, Sneezing “Sammy Sosa sneezing” has a pleasant ring to it. But it wasn’t so nice to the slugger when Sosa sneezed so hard he strained a ligament in his lower back. He needed an epidermal and was placed on the 15-day DL.

23. Kyle Farnsworth, Fan Excitable boy Farnsworth was furious after giving up six runs in a 2004 appearances. So he took a mighty kick at an electrical fan in the Wrigley Field tunnel. Thrusting any body part into the reach of a fan’s blade is horrible idea, but Farnsworth’s kick actually landed him on the DL with a sprained knee.

22. Kent Hrbek, Clubhouse Horseplay Kent “Buy a vowel” Hrbek missed the last ten days of the 1990 season after tweaking his back while wrestling with a clubhouse attendant. Hrbek was 6’4 and well over 200 pounds, so that was one brave clubhouse attendant.

21. Joel Zumaya, Guitar Hero Watching somebody play Guitar Hero can be funny; gamers get really into all the rock poses and gyrations it requires. Tigers relief pitcher Zumaya, who had the arm strength to throw a baseball over 100 MPH, put so much energy into his faux-musical efforts that he sidelined himself with a Guitar Hero-related wrist injury.

20. Mike Harkey, Cartwheel The Cubs pitcher was attempting to impress his teammates by turning a cartwheel in the outfield before a game. At 6-5 220 Harkey should have known to stay away from gymnastics, and the ensuing knee injury had him out for the year.

19. Moises Alou, Ran Over His Son With A Bicycle Alou first injured his knee falling off of a treadmill. His bizarrely bad luck continued the next year when he ran over his son during a bike ride. The boy was uninjured, but dad re-aggravated his knee and missed an entire season.

18. Bob Stanley, Taking Out The Trash The Red Sox reliever missed a couple games after he fell down the stairs while taking out the trash. On the bright side, he had quite the trump card in future martial arguments on who should take out the garbage.

17. Charlie Hough, Handshaking Hough once broke his pinky finger while shaking hands. Now that’s a baseball injury that would never happen in Japan.

16. Steve Foster, Late Night Television Stunt You probably don’t remember Steve Foster, but in 1993 the Reds reliever was on his way to being one of the better bullpen men in baseball. That is until he strained his shoulder throwing baseballs at milk bottles during a segment on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.” He spent a month on the DL and not long after that cartilage damage was discovered and required surgery. The-then 26-year-old would never pitch in the Big Leagues again.

15. Kendrys Morales, Walk Off Celebration Morales was understandably excited when he hit a rare walkoff grand slam for the Angels in 2010. So he decided to greet his celebrating teammates by jumping up and landing on homeplate, rather than just run through it. Bad idea. He came back to earth awkwardly, snapped his left leg. He would miss almost two entire seasons with the injury.

14. Oddibe McDowell, Buttering A Dinner Roll McDowell, a huge prospect coming out of college, never lived up to the hype as a big leaguer. He did once suffer an all-time great injury; Mcdowell sliced his hand during a team luncheon while trying to butter his roll.

13. Steve Sparks, Phone Book Mishap Knuckleballer Steve Sparks missed time after dislocating his shoulder while trying to tear a phone book in two. And what would motivate a young man to do such a thing? Apparently he saw a motivational speaker do it and wanted to see if he was up to the feat of strength. He wasn’t.

12. Jose Cardenal, Eyelids Stuck Shut Cardenal, who was quite the all-around character, missed a game in 1974 when he woke up to find his eyelids stuck shut. He claims he slept on them wrong.

11. Kevin Mitchell, Donut Of The Pastry Variety The 1989 National League MVP once missed time after straining his ribs vomiting. That would be the most bizarre injury for most players, but Mitchell also once arrived to spring training four days late because he was injured eating an overly microwaved doughnut. And that takes the cake.

10. Roger Craig, Bra Strap The bra has long befuddled the young male heavy petter. But Roger Craig was already old enough to the San Fransisco Giants manager when he severely cut himself removing a woman’s brassiere.

9. Terry Harper, High Five Legend has it, baseball player Glenn Burke invented the high-five in 1977. Another baseball player, Atlanta Braves outfielder Terry Harper, suffered the only known high-five injury in 1985 when he separated his shoulder waving a teammate home and then high-fiving him

8. Ricky Henderson, Frostbite The Hall of Famer missed a game after suffering from frostbite … in August. It all sort of makes sense because it’s Rickey Henderson.

7. John Smoltz, Iron Burning yourself with an iron isn’t that unusual of an injury — those things are hot. However, Smoltz was injured because he burned himself while trying to iron the shirt he was still wearing. He later called the 1990 newspaper report which documented the bizarre incident “the most false thing I’ve ever heard.” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution article is still available online and it quotes Smoltz as saying of injury, “I couldn’t believe it. I’ve done it five or six times and never had that happen.” Somebody needs to get the bottom of this scalding mystery.

6. Bret Barberie, Chili Sauce In The Eye Bret Barberie got the first hit in Florida Marlins’ history. He is also the first baseball player to ever miss a start because he got chili sauce in his eye. He says it was an accident, which makes us feel a bit better about Bret Barberie. We’re also surprised that in our age of sriracha there hasn’t been another hot sauce-related baseball injury.

5. Larry Anderson and Bob Feller, Jacuzzi Maladies Anderson strained his rib while getting out of his Jacuzzi. Feller was using the relaxing properties of a more primitive Jacuzzi to work his sore back and ended up getting burned by a hose that got loose. Hot tubbers beware.

4. Randy Veras, pounding on hotel wall During a road trip, the couple in the next hotel room over from Randy Veras’s were a little, um, randy. The relief pitcher injured himself pounding on the wall in an attempt to get them to tone it down.

3. Wade Boggs, Cowboy boots Hitting machine Wade Boggs was sidelined for about a week in 1986 after he bruised his ribs while trying to take off his cowboy boots. As anyone who has ever worn cowboy boots can attest to, taking them on and off can be a bit tricky. But since this is Boggs we do have to wonder if alcohol was involved. The Hall of Famer was flirting with the elusive .400 mark at the time of the injury, but the pain stuck with him for a while and he ended up hitting .357.

2. Vince Coleman, Automatic Tarp Machine The Cardinals speedster missed the rest of the 1985 World Series with a chipped bone in his knee after somehow managing to get run over by the tarp machine. Apparently, he was so into his pregame workout he didn’t notice the electrical field-covering device had been activated. 1. Glenallen Hill Imaginary Spiders Hill suffered from a very acute cause of Arachnophobia. His was so bad that he would often wake up in the middle of the night screaming about the eight-legged bugs. During one particularly scary dream he jumped out of bed, landing on a glass table, and then fell down the stairs. He sustained numerous cuts and bruises and was placed on the 15-day DL. We’re thinking his nickname of Spiderman just added insult to injury.

Williams, who coaches the team, was ejected from a game in Aberdeen, Maryland for being “confrontational.” He allegedly got into with the umpires and some of the opposing players, calling one of the ten-year olds a “pussy.” He is also accused of ordering one of his pitchers to throw at a different youth player.

Williams is no stranger to public aggression; last year he almost brawled with former Phillies teammate Lenny Dysktra at an event in a Philadelphia area mall.

Dykstra has his own long rap sheet of questionable incidents. Nails has been arrested on everything from sexual harassment to drug possession to grand theft auto and filing a false financial statement, and served almost two years in prison on the latter two charges.

Here are eight other instances of shocking off-field behavior from current or former Big Leaguers.

8. Wade Boggs‘ Affair With Margo Adams
When he was on road, Wade Boggs liked to get a little on the side. So what? Professional athletes have been doing that since the dawn of road games. But the married Red Sox‘s third baseman affair with real estate agent Margo Adams became big news in 1988 when he ended it, and she sued him for $12 million for emotional distress and breach of oral contract. (Heh, oral contract.) They reached an out-of-court settlement for less than $500,000 but the coverage of the case — she gave a (naked) interview to Penthouse, and he rebutted on 20/20 with Barbara Walters — made it an ongoing national story. It also helped bring to light some of Boggs’ quirks, including his pregame fried chicken habit and his notorious mass consumption of Miller Lights on team flights.

7. Delmon Young Channels Hitler In The Big Apple
Delmon Young is no stranger to shocking behavior; as a minor leaguer he was suspended for fifty games after he flipped his bat into the home plate umpire. In April of 2012, while playing for the Tigers, Young was arrested on a charge of aggravated harassment as a hate crime after an drunken incident in New York on an early Friday morning. In front of the team’s hotel, Young yelled slurs about Jews as he assaulted two people who were trying to give a homeless man money. None of his targets were actually Jewish. He was suspended by MLB for seven days without pay, and after a guilty plea was sentenced to ten days of community service and a trip to the Museum of Tolerance.

6. Chad Guadin Compliments And Gropes Incapacitated Woman In Hospital Bed
If you think Young’s drunken behavior was odd, wait until you get a load of what pitcher Chad Guadin did. Gaudin, who lives in the Las Vegas area, had bloodshot eyes and was slurring his speech when he entered the Desert Springs Hospital in the early morning of January 27, 2013. He approached a young woman on a gurney and, being the romantic type, told her she was beautiful. Then, to the shock of the hospital staff, he began groping the incapacitated woman’s breasts. The paramedics grabbed Gaudin and held him down until the police arrived to arrest him. Gaudin’s lawyer claims his client had been at the hospital to treat symptoms of acute renal failure due to a condition known as rhabdomyolysis, which can cause confusion. Guadin is out of baseball after failing a physical in spring training of 2014, so maybe there is something to that excuse.

5. Alfredo Simon Shoots Two On New Years
You know how in some countries revelers fire guns up in the air during celebrations like New Years? Bad idea, right? Just ask Alfredo Simon. The pitcher formally known as Carlos Cabrera was ringing in the new year in his native Dominican Republic with his cousin and some other friends when he began firing his pistol to the sky. What goes up must come down and one of the bullets struck his cousin, killing him. Another hit his cousin’s half-brother, sending him to the hospital. Simon was ultimately acquitted of involuntary manslaughter, but found himself in another legal mess earlier this year when a woman sued him for $15 million for allegedly raping her in 2013. Despite all the off-the-field distractions, the 33-year old is enjoying his best season this year.

4. John Rocker Trashes New York, Gays, Non-English Speakers
Like many closers, John Rocker had reputation for being an antagonistic fellow. He briefly became public enemy number on after explaining why he would never play in New York in the December 1999 issue of Sports Illustrated:

Imagine having to take the 7 Train to the ballpark looking like you’re riding through Beirut next to some kid with purple hair, next to some queer with AIDS … It’s depressing… The biggest thing I don’t like about New York are the foreigners. You can walk an entire block in Times Square and not hear anybody speaking English. Asians and Koreans and Vietnamese and Indians and Russians and Spanish people and everything up there. How the hell did they get in this country?

MLB ended up suspending Rocker 14 games for insensitivity.

3. Ugueth Urbina Gets 14 Years For Attempted Murder
In 2004, Ugeuth Urbina’s mother was kidnapped in his native Venezuela and held ransom for $6 million. Urbina refused to pay and his poor mom was held captive for six months before being rescued by the military. It’s enough to make a man legitimately paranoid, but Urbina went way overboard the next year when he suspected some of the workers on his Venezuelan farm had stolen a gun from him. He attacked five laborers with a machete and then attempted to use gasoline to light them on fire. In 2007 Urbina was convicted of attempted murder and given a a 14-year sentence, of which he served almost six.

2. 1985 Pittsburgh Drug Trials
From greenies to the clear, baseball has long had a problem with performance enhancing drugs in the clubhouse. The Pittsburgh drug trials of 1985 revealed that MLB also had a recreational drug problem. According to grand jury testimony, cocaine was openly sold in the Pirates dugout and even team mascot Pirate Parrot was known to move a gram or two. The investigation went well beyond just Pittsburgh, and stars like Keith Hernandez, Dave Parker, Lonnie Smith and Joaquín Andújar, who were given immunity for their testimony, admitted to not just using the drug but facilitating its distribution to other players. They were among the seven players who were initially given year-long suspensions for their role in the scandal. Ultimately, Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth allowed the suspended players back on the field if they paid a fine and did community service.

1. Mike Kekich And Fritz Peterson Swap Lives
In 1972 Yankees teammates and friends Mike Kekich and Fritz Peterson decided they would be happier if they swapped wives. And kids. And dogs. So they did. It wouldn’t be until the next year the press caught a wind of this most unusual of baseball trades, and, as you can imagine, the New York tabloids went nuts. The pitchers were booed whenever they took the mound for the next couple of years. This seemed to effect Peterson, who went from being one of the better hurlers in the AL to going 17-29 in 1973 and 1974. However, the family trade did work for Peterson in the long run; he’s been married to the former Susanne Kekich since the swap. Kekich and Marilyn Peterson didn’t get married and soon split up. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have expressed interest in bringing this bizarre tale to the big screen. How do you like them apples?

Although he reportedly had to be restrained, the lefty dutifully adhered to rule one of clubhouse fight club:

“Nothing happened,” Gonzalez said. “I think I missed that,” Desmond added.

Other clubhouse dust ups have been a bit harder to deny. Here are the six notorious teammate fights with the photographic evidence when available:

Carlos Zambrano vs. Michael Barrett
Carlos Zambrano was an enormously talented pitcher who notched 100 wins before his 29th birthday. He was also a troubled soul known for his confrontations with umpires, managers and opponents. Because of his volatile personality he probably wasn’t the easiest guy to catch, and after giving up five runs in an inning during a 2007 start he and his backstop with the Cubs Michael Barrett fought in the dugout and then the clubhouse. Barrett — who was hospitalized and received stitches on his lip —  was no saint either, having previously had altercations with opponents Roy Oswalt and A.J Pierzynksi. Both combatants are now out of the Major Leagues. Zambrano was last heard from in January when he was involved in what-else-but-a brawl during a game in his native Valenzuela.

Torii Hunter vs. Albert Pujols
As the much-heralded Angels season fell apart in late 2012, starter CJ Wilson suffered a meltdown in which he gave up seven runs in 4.2 innings. He exasperated his poor pitching by doing a lot of chirping in the dugout; including hitting advice to the Halos struggling batters. This didn’t sit well with Torii Hunter, who told CJ to zip it. After the game veteran reliever LaTroy Hawkins called a players-only meeting which Albert Pujols objected to, saying the manager and coaches should also be involved. In doing so he admonished Wilson and Hunter for fighting, not knowing that they had already made up. This didn’t sit well with Hunter, who accused Pujols of being a bad teammate and a not-so clutch hitter. The two had to be separated twice. Baseball clubhouse politics can be complicated, huh? This wasn’t the first time Hunter had gone after a teammate physically. In Minnesota he managed to punch Justin Morneau while giving him a hitting instruction. While that incident actually bonded the two — maybe because Hunter’s tough love helped Morneau become a MVP — relations between Pujols and Hunter remained icy and 2012 would be Hunter’s last year with the Angels.

Manny Rameriz vs Kevin Youkilis
Given all the wackiness of Manny Rameriz’s impressive and entertaining career it makes sense that he would square off against least one teammate. Kevin Youkilis was his huckleberry.  In 2008 cameras caught Manny taking a swipe at the third baseman in the Red Sox dugout. The funny thing was it was probably Youkilis’s behavior that caused the dustup. Youk’s habit of throwing bats and other objects every time he made an out was not popular with the rest of the Red Sox because it make him look selfish. (Boston ended up winning that particular game 7-1.) However, there is also an alternate theory that suggests the Ramirez and Youkilis confrontation steamed from Manny’s dugout eating habits. This seems unlikely, but food (fried chicken and beer) would play into another Red Sox controversy a few years later. And we can only imagine what weird and terrifying things Rameriz would do with a ballpark frank.

Barry Bonds vs. Jeff Kent
Barry Bonds and Jeff Kent are two of baseball’s most notorious jerks. They also made for just about as vicious of a three-four batting combo the National League has ever seen when they played together in San Francisco. While in a perfectly evil world the duo would have been able to combine their unpleasant personality to suck all that is good out of the game, in the actual more-complicated world they hated each other just as much as everybody else hated them. During a game in 2002 the two had a widely circulated on-camera shoving match. According to Kent those near-fisticuffs were nothing, and the second baseman conceded that they two sluggers ahd squared off in private at least a half-dozen times before that.

Elmer Flick vs. Nap Lajoie
Although they can both make Hall of Fame claims, Kent’s borderline stats and jerkiness and Bonds’ PED problems have so far kept them each out of Cooperstown. That would make Elmer Flick and Nap Lajoie the only known Hall of Fame teammates to have fought. Some say the pair just didn’t like each other. Others say it was a brawl over fashion; Flick was a natty dresser and Lajoie was known for his slovenly appearance. Apparently Lajoie didn’t like Flick constantly pointing this out and finally socked him one in the mouth. Bad move for Lajoie, who broke his hand and would miss five weeks. Bad move for the Phillies, who would fall out of first place and lose out on the 1900 pennant without their superstar second baseman.

Reggie Jackson vs. Billy Martin
Although technically not teammates — Martin was Jackson manager — the duo is probably baseball foremost example of friendly fire combatants. Martin was a pugnacious fellow, brawling with everyone from Tommy Lasorda to a marshmallow salesman during his volatile 40 years in baseball. Jackson wasn’t much of a fighter, but had an ego as prodigious as his moonshot home runs. The pair got along like oil and water and it came to a head in July of 1977 when Jackson’s lack of outfield hustle turned a single into a double. Martin confronted his slugger nose-to-nose in the dugout and twice tried to fight him. It happened to be a national televised game, and, obviously, the New York tabloids went nuts about the battle that had been brewing since Jackson arrived for the 1977 season. The fight didn’t affect the Yankees fortunes in ’77; they won the World Series. But his problems with Jackson would lead to Martin being dismissed of his duties midway through the 1978 season. That wouldn’t be the last Jackson saw of Martin, however; the manager was famously rehired in the middle of the 1979 season, before being fired and rehired by Yankee owner George Steinbrenner three more times.