Farewell Vladdy Daddy - a tribute to a great, imperfect ballplayer

Vladimir Guerrero who maybe my favorite player because of his ability to hit the crap out of the baseball with no supposed plate discipline - has apparently has officially retired, according to this news story in Spanish.

He put up fantastic numbers that makes him a legitimate Hall of Fame candidate - his accomplishments speak for themselves and I want to describe Guerrero as 100 percent ballplayer, zero percent BS like Bill James once noted about Don Mattingly.

Still there maybe there were issues left to be desired even with a great ballplayer like Guerrero - the Vlad for public consumption as a Major Leaguer seemed a little self-absorbed in his own world, where perhaps he was more laid back and loose when he came back home to the Dominican Republic.

Guerrero supposedly didn't want to speak English and the language barrier prevented Vlad from being a guy that can step in front of the camera and say some things without an interpreter - as an autograph collector, I found him cold and oblivious when approached unless he was at some paid public appearance.

He wouldn't normally sign autographs unless you were a two-bit autograph dealer paying off his driver at the ballpark - whether or not he signed autographs shouldn't matter, but if a guy isn't approachable under normal circumstances, it's kind of weird cheering him on or collecting his cards.

Did I mention he was a bit older than originally listed, has fathered at least 8 kids and played in the Steroid Era - who knows what he could have been taking, but to his credit, at no period of time has his numbers ever been scrutinized to be suspect.