I’m almost certain that there isn’t a single player on The Bottom 126 to this point who is a worse person than Julian Tavarez. Tavarez was despicable in every possible way, and I think I would rather enjoy punching him in his Braille face.

Tavarez is exactly the sort of ignorant asshole that fans just love to watch fail. And the fans often got what they wanted.

The Cubs signed Tavarez as a free agent prior to the start of the 2001 season as a starter. Yes, things were that bad in 2001. The Cubs gave Tavarez more starts (28) than any other team had during Tavarez’s career. At first, the move actually paid off, as Tavarez pitched well in his first six starts. Then, the wheels came off, and Tavarez revealed just how f@#$ing batshit crazy he was.

Not only did Tavarez start throwing some completely disastrous starts into his repertoire, but he also started acting erratically everywhere else.

I was at one of Tavarez’s starts in 2001, during which the psycho fielded a bunt back to him and rolled the ball underhand to first base, and then later in the game bunted back to the opposing pitcher, ran a couple steps, stopped, and, with bat in hand, stood there and allowed the opposing pitcher to tag him out without needing to make a throw. I don’t recall hearing a Cubs pitcher booed so vociferously prior to the 2003 season.

Tavarez also had a thing for planting his feet into the ground with his toes pointed toward home plate and then trying to make a throw across his body to first base. It was like watching a horribly-designed high school freshman baseball drill being executed by a guy whose skin was worse than- well- a high school freshman baseball player.

Beyond being bad at hitting and fielding, what was the deal with Tavarez diving headfirst into first base on routine outs? The guy was the Jerry Hairston, Jr. of pitchers. All those times he slid into first, and he couldn’t have snapped his throwing wrist just once!?

Lest you forget, Tavarez wasn’t even part of the team for Opening Day of the 2001 season, as he was handed a suspension by the league for getting into a fight with the Giants’ Russ Davis during a Spring Training game. Remember that one? Tavarez tried to use the Crane Kick to take down Davis. Sissy.

At least that Spring Training fight was an isolated incident, though. It’s not like anyone could be psychotic enough to instigate fights during Spring Training twice in one career, right? I mean, it’s just Spring Training. No one takes it that seriously. Wait, what? Just last year, you say? Tavarez sucker-punched Joey Gathright while Gathright was sitting on the ground, you say? Huh. Weird.

Well, at least Tavarez can fall back on the fact that he’s an open and accepting human being. Unless you’re an asshole or a faggot, that is. Tavarez attacked the people of San Francisco later in the 2001 season after receiving a chorus of boos from fans still upset about the Russ Davis incident. Tavarez was fined by the Cubs and ordered into sensitivity classes by Bud Selig.

At least Tavarez defied convention by being a sniveling loser before he was a Cub. Tavarez was the whimpering, crying little simp sitting in the dugout after the Cleveland Indians lost the 1995 World Series to the Atlanta Braves. I can only imagine many a head lice drown in his tears as they pooled in his gigantic pores.

The next year, Tavarez threw umpire Joe Brinkman to the ground during a brawl. He’s not crazy, though. He was just defending Albert Belle.

It certainly doesn’t appear that Tavarez rehabilitated himself since leaving the Cubs at the end of the 2001 season in the trade which also sent Dontrelle Willis to Florida and brought Antonio Alfonseca and Matt Clement to the Cubs, either.

In 2003, Tavarez drilled J.T. Snow hard enough that he broke Snow’s arm, prompting even mild-mannered Felipe Alou to question Tavarez’s history of drilling former teammates.

As a Cardinal, it was also revealed that Tavarez was a cheating piece of shit, as Joe West ejected him from a game for doctoring the ball with a foreign substance on his hat. Tavarez served a 10-game suspension for the infraction, which his squeaky-clean manager Tony LaRussa called “a very minor thing.” Never mind the fact that Tavarez tried to get rid of the offending hat by tossing it into the stands before the umpires had a chance to really inspect it. Thanks a lot, asshole. You could have at least cheated for the Cubs instead of for the f@#$ing Deadbirds.

Tavarez at least did the Cubs a favor by throwing a tantrum during the 2004 NLCS while pitching for the Cardinals. Tavarez punched the bullpen phone, and wound up breaking his pitching hand. Honestly, though, Tavarez had put together the best season of his career (by cheating), and really hurt the Cardinals’ chances of winning the World Series. Thanks, Julian, but that still makes you a prick. When Cardinals fans want you out of town even more than they wanted fellow asshole pitcher Steve Kline gone, you know you’ve bottomed out.

The last straw for Tavarez, and the clinching moment for his high placement on this list was his recent admission that he has no idea who Ernie Banks is. Come on, really? You pitched for his team only six years ago. He’s one of the greatest players to ever play the game of baseball. Shit, he’s #1 on some people’s lists of the Top 100 Cubs of all time. I didn’t realize Tavarez’s brain was as riddled with holes as his skin.

Get bent, Tavarez, you lowlife.

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Low Point: Remember how I said Tavarez actually started off decently well with the Cubs? It didn’t last. After his first four starts, Tavarez gave up at least one earned run in each game in which he pitched from April 28, 2001, all the way through September 1, 2001. That’s a streak of 23 starts during which Tavarez was scored upon. That’s bad. During the penultimate game of that streak, on August 23, 2001, Tavarez only managed to record one out in the first inning against the Milwaukee Brewers at Wrigley Field while surrendering seven hits and giving up five earned runs. Tavarez gave up six straight hits to the Brewers, including a final blow by current Cubs catcher Henry Blanco. You know how you know if you suck? You need Todd Van Poppel to bail you out of a mess you created in your home ballpark against the Milwaukee Brewers. Oh, and the Cubs lost 8-1.

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Did You Know? Had Tavarez’s baseball career not panned out, you might have seen him in porn. I can only imagine it would be a bunch of dudes picking a hole in his face and- Ah, never mind. Suffice it to say I’m suddenly glad he was a pitcher.