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Men With Big Sticks: Hottest Players in Baseball 2012

When it comes to the American Pastime, spring baseball can be a fresh start, or it can really hang you up the most. You can come on like a lion, or you can limp home, injured, like a sacrificial lamb.

Before they become the heroic Boys of Summer, Major League Baseball players spend the first two months of the season getting into the swing of things, learning how to play with each other, avoiding or recovering from practice injuries, or just recuperating from the long winter layoff.

This spring, many more baseball players than usual have been swinging their big sticks with awesome results. Here, we’ve chosen to honor these men as much for their athletic skill as for their looks. Oh, who are we kidding? When it comes to baseball, it’s all about looks. And extra innings.

If you liked last season’s “Swingers” list, you still don’t need to know the difference between a “basket catch” and a “backdoor slider” to enjoy this updated baker’s dozen of the hottest, sexiest, sweetest-spot men playing the field. Ready? Play ball!

Cole Hamels – Philadelphia Phillies

(Photo by Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images)

Youthful and handsome Cole Hamels has been a game-winning pitcher for most of his career. The thrilling appearances on the mound of this cool, slim, wooly World Series MVP are memorable, but not always for the best reason. After a disappointing slump, Hamels showed up this season in the best shape of his career, and so far, with a poise and iciness that makes baseball fans’ hearts flutter, he’s been more or less mowing down the competition. In any season, Hamels is the guy to watch for his athletic ability, great looks and sexy demeanor. This season, more than ever, you shouldn’t take your eyes off him.

Andre Ethier - Los Angeles Dodgers

(Photo by Rob Tringali/Getty Images)

A movie-star-handsome ballplayer on a team brimming with them, Ethier has the distinction of hitting more game-ending walk-off home runs than any player since the 1970s. He’s also a heavy-hitter in the team’s best spring in a generation. With steamy good looks bestowed from a father of French Canadian and Cherokee descent and a mother who is Mexican American, Ethier has grown to become a Chavez Ravine fan favorite. In a town full of screen gods, there’s a reason they call him Andre the Giant.

Josh Hamilton - Texas Rangers

(Photo by Rick Yeatts/Getty Images)

A major contributor to the Rangers’ success in this, or any, season is bighearted bad boy MVP Josh Hamilton, who has built one of the best records in modern baseball. Off the field, however, he has battled alcohol and drug addiction, and last season Hamilton was devastated when a fan fell to his death trying to catch a ball he tossed into the crowd. A painful spring back injury removed the red-hot Hamilton from baseball for a while, but he came back recently to accomplish a milestone by hitting four home runs in the same game.

Bryce Harper - Washington Nationals

(Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)

Chosen by the Washington Nationals as the first overall pick in the 2010 Major League Baseball Draft, teenager Bryce Aron Max Harper has, at only age 19, begun to sweep the Capitol City off its feet. Blessed with tall, muscled stature, a goofy grin and a major set of ears framing soulful green eyes, Harper may yet turn out to be the superstar many sportswriters are already claiming he is. For now, the hype seems to be holding as his appearances on the field elicit cheers and lusty screams for a youthful, spirited player who is the center of attention for a team longing to establish its credentials in the sport.

Anthony Bass - San Diego Padres

(Photo by Denis Poroy/Getty Images)

A rising young star on a team that is enduring it’s worst season so far, tall, dark and handsome Anthony Bass has vastly improved his pitching since his MLB debut just last season. Unfortunately, he’s a great pitcher on what looks to be an already exhausted team. It’s gotten so bad that, in a recent game against the middling San Francisco Giants, Bass was throwing a perfect game into the 6th inning, only to have it demolished by a hit from his opposing pitcher, Tim Lincecum. Bass has the strength and talent to grow into a legendary pitcher – but only if he finds a team that can successfully defend his growing mastery of the hill.

Ryan Braun – Milwaukee Brewers

(Photo by Scott Cunningham/Getty Images)

The very best eyes in baseball belong to Ryan Braun, the sex-on-a-stick Hall of Fame-bound sports hero considered to be one of the all-time best sluggers in the game. Rookie of the Year, Silver Slugger, MVP – he’s won all the titles and then some. Braun is nicknamed the “Hebrew Hammer” and is the highest drafted Jewish player in the history of the majors. During the 2011 off-season ESPN reported that he tested positive for an elevated level of testosterone caused by a performance-enhancing drug, only to have sanctions overturned by an MLB arbitrator. Never married, Braun has refused invitations to appear on ABC’s “The Bachelor”. Who wouldn’t jump for a chance to grab his rose?

Adam Wainwright – St. Louis Cardinals

(Photo by Chris Covatta/MLBPA via Getty Images)

After missing the 2011 season due to elbow surgery that usually keeps pitchers off the mound for 15 months or more, Adam Wainwright returned to the game this spring with a few brutal starts but increasing confidence that indicates his pitching may not have been too terribly impaired. One of the few pitchers who, in his first career at bat hit a home run, the 6’7” Wainwright continues to tower over the game with a calm, unruffled, smiley/dopey demeanor that causes St. Louis fans to cheer and whistle when he takes the field.

Sean Rodriguez – Tampa Bay Rays

Let’s hear it for a player who likes to switch positions! After a mostly unhappy career spent playing every position on the field except catcher and pitcher (it’s not what you’re thinking), consider Sean Rodriguez to be baseball’s most versatile player. The resurgent Rays – usually perennial also-rans – are enjoying their best spring ever, thanks in large part to the slugging and fielding of hotter-than-hot Rodriguez, a peppy base-stealing shortstop with the Rays since 2009. Strong, fast and full tropical sensuality, Rodriguez moves with athletic grace and elegance. Even his unfortunate haircuts and sartorial accidents can’t diminish his appeal. This Miami-born athlete is also a gay-friendly family man: in addition to participation in autism education, Rodriguez appeared in the Rays’ “It Gets Better” video.

David Wright – New York Mets

(Photo by Nick Laham/Getty Images)

My husband thinks that if you knock on David Wright he must feel solid, like cement, because the diminutive (for a baseball player) third baseman is built like a brick house. Possessing a sexy smile and smoldering blue eyes beneath dark eyebrows, Wright has leaped to stardom since he was drafted by the Mets in 2001, by quietly shattering records and becoming one of the all-time great Mets players. A five time All-Star, a Silver Slugger and a Golden Glove recipient, Wright is gorgeous and rich. According to the New York Post, thanks to an endorsement deal that gave him a percentage of the company, Wright netted millions when VitaminWater was sold to Coca-Cola.

Alex Rios – Chicago White Sox

(Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

A hot-hitting center fielder for the Chicago White Sox, Alex Rios is, at age 31, a fiery player in prime condition, with one of the best bodies in baseball – though his behavior after a 2011 season game was not exactly classy. After striking out five times in a single game, a furious Rios stirred up controversy when he was videotaped cursing a heckling fan and ignoring a child seeking an autograph – actions he publicly apologized for. So far this spring rock-solid Rios is slugging at the top of his game, and probably giving out a few more autographs than usual.

J.J. Hardy – Baltimore Orioles

(Photo by Greg Fiume/Getty Images)

Hailing from an athletic family – his father was a professional tennis player, and his mother was a professional golfer – J.J. Hardy decided early to take on the life of a professional athlete. After several promising seasons with the Brewers, the oft-injured, sapphire-eyed shortstop is having a fairly good spring on the Orioles, a team that suddenly isn’t so horrid. After a downward spiral of a losing record in every season since 1997, strategic trades (including Hardy’s) and retro uniforms have contributed to making the Orioles an enjoyable surprise in baseball this season. A slugger with 30 homers to his credit last season, handsome Hardy has been a game-changing factor in recent weeks.

Jacoby Ellsbury – Boston Red Sox

AfterElton readers pummeled your dear writer last year when I inexplicably left this gorgeous Oregon-born Native American off the list. A standout since playing little league in his hometown east of Mt. Hood, Jacoby Ellsbury, as a Boston Red Sox rookie in 2007 played a big role in securing the team’s World Series Championship. Unfortunately, base-stealing fan favorite Ellsbury, who finished second in the American League MVP voting last season, was recently injured and will probably be out of the game for several weeks. But once he returns, Ellsbury can touch all my bases anytime he wants.

Barry Zito – San Francisco Giants

(Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

Hands down, idiosyncratic Barry Zito is the sexiest player in baseball. The Tinseltown son of successful musicians who worked with Nat King Cole, he’s got great hair, a sensitive, soulful face, and a lithe body that has seen more sweat time with personal trainers than you or I will ever afford. He does yoga, lives in the Hollywood Hills, drives fast cars and dated Alyssa Milano and Paris Hilton before marrying ,strong>Miss Missouri. His mind and body discipline has enabled him, at age 33, to continue in a game at a time when his pitching contemporaries are considering retirement. By last season Zito had become a frustrated, injured pitcher with more defeats than wins. After realigning his training regimen and developing what some fans consider an all-new pitch, Zito began the 2012 season with a start against the Colorado Rockies in April, and threw what was certainly the best game of his career, a complete game shutout. When they make “The Barry Zito Story” Barry Zito should star. And it should be a musical.

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