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PERSONAL:
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- In 2002, Adam described himself as a "small-town redneck hick," in a Sports Illustrated article. He might be, but he is a nice, down-to-earth young man. He loves to hunt and fish more than he loves to play baseball, but he loves all three. And he is not the hick he might have been portrayed as in the article.
- Dunn comes from a very close family. His father, Skip, is a welding equipment salesman. His mother, Pat, is a stay-at-home mother.
Porter, Texas has a population of 7,000 and is 40 miles north of Houston and is also home to many grazing cows. The Dunns have lived there for over 40 years, since Skip's father, James, and uncles T.J. and Freeman decided Houston was too bustling.
Branching off Porter's main thoroughfare is Dunn Lane, a blacktop strip that leads to nine houses, all of which are occupied by relatives of Adam's. On Thanksgiving and Christmas, 80-to-110 family members gather in the family rec hall near the Dunn Lane cul-de-sac. "No matter how well my career goes, nobody here will ask anything of me. I'm just another Dunn to them," Adam says. [SI's John Pearlman, March 2002].
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Before 2005 spring training, Adam moved from Porter to a lake-front home in Montgomery, Texas.
"I'm no longer a Porter Rican. I bought the house this past October, mainly because it's on the water," Adam told Sports Illustrated's Jeff Pearlman. "All I did this off-season (before 2005 spring camp) was fish. I'll fish anywhere within 100 miles of my house. This winter I caught a nine-pound bass. That's a hell of a rush. I like killing deer a whole lot, but I enjoy fishing more. Fishing is just so exciting."
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Dunn hit his first home run at age four in Tee-Ball. He credits his Dad, who was his Little League coach, with teaching him how to be a good hitter. "It was one of those things where my Dad was always my Little League baseball coach. He would take me out and we'd just hit."
HIGH SCHOOL EXPLOITSIn 1998, Adam hit .541-6-18, stole a whopping 34 bases, and also had an 0.84 ERA as a pitcher—his senior year at New Carney High School in Texas.
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Dunn hit one of the longest home runs in the history of Texas high school baseball, when he was a junior. It was to dead-center field, over the pine trees. Some say it went 500 feet. In football, he threw for over 3,500 yards and 31 touchdowns over his last two seasons of high school.In 2002, the New Caney Independent School District in Porter, Texas, dedicated Adam Dunn Field.He graduated with a 3.5 grade point average.One of the best quarterbacks in the nation, he signed with the Reds in June 1998 in a deal where he played with a minor league team until the end of July, then reported to the University of Texas football camp. But during 1999 spring training, with Major Applewhite firmly holding the starting quarterback spot for Texas, and heavily-recruited Chris Simms lurking on the bench, Adam announced he was leaving football to pursue his pro baseball career.
The Reds guaranteed he'd be called up to Major League Club in September 1999. But Adam chose to get more individual coaching in Instructional League instead.
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Dunn is a tireless worker who takes a lot of extra batting practice and work in the outfield. He has leadership ability. He is a winner. He is blessed with ambition. And he is one of the best physical specimens in baseball.His "football metality" has helped give him the confidence and ability to handle challenges and pressure with ease. His makeup is off-the-charts. An outsider could think Adam is somewhat arrogant. But he is not cocky, he just has confidence in his ability.
Adam really is soft-spoken and has his head on straight. He fits right into a clubhouse. His teammates appreciate his personality and work ethic. His enthusiasm rubs off on others.
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In 2001, Adam was the first recipient of the Reds' Chief Bender Award, for the Minor League Player of the Year.Former Reds' teammate, pitcher Jose Rijo, is impressed with Dunn: "He might be like Bugs Bunny someday. He might hit a ball and break it in half."Before the 2002 season, Adam spent the winter going all over the country. He accepted invitations to a function at Hugh Hefner's Playboy Mansion near Los Angeles. He also visited California to hunt turkeys and stopped off in Las Vegas to attend the Lennox Lewis-Hasim Rahman heavyweight championship fight. Plus, he spent the weekend in New Orleans for Super Bowl XXXVI.
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at the 2002 All Star Game, Dunn was the youngest player (21 years, eight months) on either squad. He also was the biggest (six-six, 245 pounds). Informed of this, Dunn said: "And, I'm the best looking—and the smartest!"Adam was in the 2002 All Star Game in Milwaukee. He was the youngest Cincinnati Red, at 22, to make the National League team since 1970, when Wayne Simpson (21) and Johnny Bench (22) were All Stars.
FAVORITESDunn likes to hunt and fish. And when the Reds are on the road, he likes to play PlayStation.
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Dunn's favorite food? "Mexican—anything Mexican," he says. His favorite restaurant is "La Casita" in his hometown of Porter, Texas.For music, Adam prefers "any kind of country." He says his favorite movies are "Tombstone" and "Weekend at Bernie's."His favorite vacations spot? "I like Tennessee—Gatlinburg. It's in old-folks territory, but I like it," Dunn said.Favorite athletes: "I like watching Larry Walker. I liked Bo Jackson back in the day," Adam said. "Boxing, I like Wladimir Klitschko. I saw him in Las Vegas. He's a big dude; he's a stud. Golf, Steve Elkington—gotta go with my boy. We're pretty good friends," Dunn said. But asked his favorite, Adam said, "I've got three. Brett Favre, because of his guts. Peyton Manning, because he's Favre with more talent. And Roy Jones Jr., because he's one baaaad man. Just love him. I don't care how many times he gets knocked down, he's the greatest."
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Adam showed up at 2003 spring training in his black Mercedes with tinted windows, a car he had owned for over a year, but one that clashes with his down-home personality. "It's not one of the smartest investments I've ever invested in," Dunn said. "I've only put about 2,600 miles on it, because I don't drive it. I don't like driving it."Dunn sees the advantage of being one of the biggest guys around, at 6-feet-6 and 275 pounds.
"I'd never want to be small. I've gotten in a few fights in my day. The last one was during a flag football game 10 years ago, when someone was messing with my brother Jason [who is five years older]. You don't mess with my brother. So I snapped and beat the guy down." (Sports Illustrated-Jeff Pearlman-3/28/05)
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Dunn is a good person, solid teammate and a player who realizes his shortcomings on the baseball diamond. "That word gets thrown around a bunch," Dunn said of leadership (April 2008 by Mark Sheldon of MLB). "We have leaders on this team. Just because we're not 'rah-rah, hey look at me on the top step' in the game, I think sometimes people think that's the leaders people should be. We don't have those guys." "Since I got here in 2001, it's happened," he added. "I'm not trying to be cocky or conceited, that's something since I was 10 years old that's happened. It's a role that I'm used to. Just because I don't do it like some people would do it or want me to do it, I can't help that."
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Dunn was blasted by Blue Jays G.M. J.P. Ricciardi on his Toronto radio show. A caller suggested that a deal for Dunn might help the struggling Toronto offense, and Ricciardi responded bluntly. "Do you know the guy doesn't really like baseball that much?" Ricciardi said. "Do you know the guy doesn't have a passion to play the game that much? How much do you know about the player? There's a reason why you're attracted to some players and there's a reason why you're not attracted to some players. I don't think you'd be very happy if we brought Adam Dunn here." Dunn, who is available in the trade market, was shown a copy of Ricciardi's comments. "I know nothing about this clown. I have no idea who he is," Dunn told reporters in Cincinnati on Thursday. "I don't really care what one guy thinks, to be honest with you. If I'm a GM, I don't know if I would go out of my way to kind of discredit a player.
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"It [ticks] me off to be honest with you. He doesn't even know me. If he knew me, fine, say what you want. This guy doesn't know anything about me other than what he sees on whatever SportsCenter they have up there. That's it." Ricciardi said the next evening that he called Walt Jocketty, the general manager of the Reds, to apologize to him, and he was in the process of contacting Dunn directly. "I let my guard down" said Ricciardi. "I apologize to him. I have to be better than that... Unfortunately, you get caught in the heat of the moment. I don't even know Adam Dunn." (Buster Olney-ESPN.com) Dunn has that shaggy-haired, "Big Lebowski" slacker look. "A classic movie, one of my favorites," he said. And he calls everybody "dude," too. He's just jeans and semi-combed hair, a guy lying on the clubhouse floor because the stools are too small, joking with new teammates, looking like a beached sea mammal.
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On the inside, he's a student of hitting, a man who plays hurt, averaging 158 games the last five years, and a Texan who's too proud to show he's hurt. His hitting statistics at age 29 resemble Reggie Jackson and Harmon Killebrew, surpass Mike Schmidt. Adam Dunn doesn't really look like a baseball player. He is so big that he can look like he is lumbering, or even clumsy out there. And that can make it appear as if he is not giving max effort.
But former teammate Bronson Arroyo understands why people are wrong about Dunn: "If you came and listened in the clubhouse, you might think, God, this guy never wants to play the game. He could definitely come across as a Texas boy who's friggin' laid-back and maybe doesn't appreciate being a big league ballplayer.
"But it wasn't the case at all. It was just the personna he gave off, not what was honesty in his heart," Arroyo explained. "Because if he wasn't in the oineup one day, he'd be like, 'Whoa, why am I not in there?' The truth was, he could have a broken toe or broken wrist, and he'd still be out on the field, and he love's playing the game hard."
Adam played in 791 games over the five seasons from 2004 to 2008—an average of more than 158 per season. During that span, only three players: Ichiro Suzuki, Miguel Cabrera and Michael Young, appearaed in more games. And Dunn played many of those games with injuries that have sidelined many, many players for weeks at a time.
"He probably was one of the best guys I've ever managed in this game," Reds manager Dusty Baker, who lost Dunn late in 2008 because Cincinnati didn't think it could afford to re-sign him in the off-season. "People don't know what they're talking about. They go on hearsay, or what they think they see. We're very quick to be judmental about somebody. But once these things get out, you can't put them back in." (help from Ben Reiter-Sports Illustrated-3/23/09)
TRANSACTION REPORT
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June 1998: The Reds chose Dunn in the second round, out of New Caney High School in Texas. February 13, 2006: Dunn signed a 2-year, $18 million contract with the Reds. The pact call for $13 million club option for 2008. The Reds could've bought out the option for $500,000. But they picked up the slugger's option at the end of October. The deal paid Dunn $7.5 million for the 2006 season and $10.5 million for the 2007 season. And $13 million for 2008.
Adam bought a Bentley during the off-season before 2006 spring training. He actually bought it before he signed the big contract.August 11, 2008: The Diamondbacks sent RHP Dallas Buck, RHP Micah Owings, and C/INF Wilkin Castillo to the Reds, acquiring Dunn and cash.
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November 1, 2008: Adam filed for free agency. February 11, 2009: Dunn signed a 2-year, $20 million contract with the Nationals.
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BATTING:
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- Dunn is a strong presence on a baseball field at six-foot-five, 240 pounds, with giant calves and arms like Schwarzenegger. He is going to be a mega-star.
- He is like a Jim Thome, but with speed. And he reminds a lot of baseball people of Larry Walker. Adam is a good lefthanded hitter with very good power derived from real good bat speed. He has the speed and power to be a 30/30 man in the Majors.
- "He's a monster," Phillies OF Doug Glanville said in 2002. "He's real tall, he's got those big, long arms. It's like something out of a horror movie. You take a look at him and watch him do his thing at the plate -- it makes you wonder what he's going to do."
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Dunn shows maturity at the plate, walking almost as much as he strikes out. His plate discipline is very impressive. He has been compared to Ryan Klesko and Jim Thome. Adam has keen eyesight. But he probably takes too many pitches. He can adjust his swing from pitch-to-pitch and uses the entire field. Pitchers used to get him out up and in. But he now gets to those pitches. He still has problems adjusting to good inside heat. Pitchers can get him to chase a split-finger pitch. He also has trouble hitting a good slider. Mike Greenwell helped Dunn in 2001. According to Greenwell, "Adam had a very narrow base in his stance, feet close together. That made it easy to jam him. He had to open up his hips to get to inside pitches and that made him hit everything the opposite way. I widened his feet, spread them about 12 inches to 18 inches wider. When you are that big, six-five, you need a bigger base to get your hips to move."
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Dunn's longest home runs come when he pulls the ball to right field, but he also can go the opposite way with outside pitches. Strangely, Dunn says he has always hit lefthanded pitchers better than righthanders, but he's never been able to figure out why. That is highly unusual.
HIGH ON-BASE PERCENTAGE He has the power numbers. And he gets on base a whole lot. In 2001, Dunn recorded a respectable .371 on-base percentage as a rookie.
In 2002, he improved to .400, barely missing the National League's Top 10 in that category, while ranking third in the NL with 128 walks. He reached base safely in 134 of 158 games, including 28 games in a row between July 17-August 17. Dunn also set a club record by walking at least once in 13 consecutive games from May 15-28.
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Dunn wouldn't be the first home-run threat to bat leadoff. Rickey Henderson, perhaps the greatest leadoff hitter ever, and Bobby Bonds, who finished with 332 career home runs, brought power to the top of the order. Brady Anderson produced 35 of his startling 50 homers for Baltimore in 1996 from the leadoff spot. Willie Mays, third all-time with 660 homers, led off for the first couple of weeks of the 1969 season with San Francisco. And Barry Bonds, who is fourth all-time with 613 dingers, batted leadoff early in his career with the Pirates.
Then-Reds manager Bob Boone cited his former teammate, Brian Downing, who stole only 50 bases in 20 Major League seasons but thrived while leading off for the California Angels in the 1980s.
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Dunn really took to Reds' hitting coach Chris Chambliss in 2004. And he is very thankful for his help to this day. Dunn has had trouble with hitting coaches in the past trying to pound into his head that he needed to take this approach or that approach, leaving his mind a mess by the time he stepped into the batter's box. Information overload isn't Chambliss' style. It's a tip here, a pointer there, and encouragement all the time.
"I love it, he's great," Dunn said. "I think we think alike, which is kind of scary." The fresh outlook had Dunn playing loose -- acting his age, even. And there's plenty to be said for the impact a positive mindset can have. At times in 2003, Dunn seemed like the oldest 23-year-old in the world. His frustration seeped through and affected every facet of his game. (Marc Lancaster-Cincinnati Post-3/5/04)
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Dunn's failure to make contact led to one of the most amazing stats of this, or any decade. From July 22, 2003 through June 29, 2005, Adam went 1,085 plate appearances without a sacrifice fly. He had a runner at 3rd with fewer than two outs 66 times and did not hit a run-scoring fly ball. Midway through the 2008 season, Dunn changed from a maple bat back to the old, traditional ash bat.
"I'm sick of hittng the ball on the screws and seeing the bat explode while I'm lining out to the shortstop," Adam said. "I'm tired of them breaking all the time. I'm using maple for batting practice and ash in games." On September 30, 2004, Dunn became baseball's single-season strikeout leader. He passed Bobby Bonds' mark of 189 strikeouts in 1970.
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In 2006, Adam led the Major Leagues in strikeouts (194). In 2004, Adam became just the second player in Cincinnati Reds' team history to reach triple figures in runs (105), RBI (102), and walks (108). Joe Morgan was the first with 113 runs, 111 RBI, and 114 walks in 1976.
And Dunn had 46 home runs, the fourth-highest single-season total in Reds history, behind george Foster (52 in 1977) and Ted Kluszewski (49 in 1954 and 47 in 1955).
Amazing Statistic: In 2002, NONE of Dunn's 102 RBI came on a sacrifice fly!In 2007, Adam became the first player in Reds history to hit 40 or more homers in four consecutive seasons. And the Reds have had some great homerun hitters -- Frank Robinson, Ted Kluszewski, George Foster, Johnny Bench. . . . But only Dunn had 40 in four straight seasons.
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Dunn uses a C353 Louisville Slugger, 34-1/2 inches, 34 ounces. He has used that bat for years. But late in the season, he will bump up to a 35-ounce bat sometimes.
BREAKDOWN VS. RIGHTIES AND LEFTIESIn 2003, the lefty hitting Dunn batted only .202 against lefthanders, with 9 home runs in 119 at-bats. Against righthanders, Adam hit .221 with 18 home runs in 262 at-bats.In 2005, Dunn hit only .197, but with 13 home runs in 188 at-bats vs. lefthanded pitchers, and .273 with 27 homers in 355 at-bats against rigthanded pitching. In 2006, he hit lefthanded pitchers for a .270 batting average with 11 home runs in 185 at-bats. He managed only a .215 average vs. righthanders, but with 29 home runs in 376 at-bats.
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In 2007, Adam hit .239 with 9 home runs in 188 at-bats vs. lefthanded pitchers, while hitting .278 with 31 home runs in 334 at-bats against righthanders.In 2009, Dunn hit .268 with 7 home runs in 149 at-bats off lefthanders, and hit .267 with 31 homers in 397 at-bats vs. righthanded pitchers.
Entering the 2010 season, Adam's career batting average was .249 with 316 home runs in 4,417 at-bats.
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