When you or I need a hug, we simply go down to the corner and offer to pay a stranger for his/her kindness. But baseball players, bound by a code of duty and hairy-shouldered manliness, have to stymie their affectionate impulses. We propose remedying this situation with a league-mandated hug-off, commencing with the following lonely hearts.

Milton Bradley, Texas Rangers
We focus so much on the rage that has set Bradley upon umpire, teammate and Sunday driver alike, not to mention his insistence upon “introducing himself” to unflattering broadcasters. What we don’t focus on: the scared boy inside the sociopath, one whose good deeds and on-field accomplishments have been acknowledged with little more than widespread adulation, huge mounds of cash, and free home-theater systems.
Type of hug: Quick shoulder-to-shoulder bump, with a battalion of snipers and security personnel monitoring the proceedings nearby.

Aaron Rowand, San Francisco Giants
He doesn’t appear to wash his face or his cap. He regularly face-plants in the pursuit of shallow pop-ups and leaves molds of his orbital socket in the center-field wall when chasing down balls in the gap. He gives only the barest acknowledgement of his supreme effort. Is this the behavior of a man unable to articulate his pressing need for a big, goopy hug, or what?
Type of hug: Smothering, to the extent that the hugger has to be subdued and the huggee needs CPR.

Grady Sizemore, Cleveland Indians
So stoic. So square-jawed. So focused on the task at hand. You know that somewhere behind the iron-man façade, he’s got a sad story to tell, likely involving a beloved puppy and his father’s stealth late-night burial thereof.
Type of hug: An embrace so enveloping that it neutralizes his spasms of sobs.

J.J. Hardy, Milwaukee Brewers
He was raised in an East St. Louis tenement by a woman who may or may not have been his aunt. One Christmas, he received nothing but a chipped broomstick, which he fashioned into a crude baseball bat. He honed his baserunning instincts while dodging stray gunfire… OK, none of this is true. But what if it were, man? What if it were?
Type of hug: A standard-issue model, but heavy on the patting—say, somewhere between 18 and 22 pats.

Paul Lo Duca, Florida Marlins 
He’s both hard-headed (nobody seems to take more delight in calling out a lollygagging teammate) and hard-livin’ (see under: gambling issues and public dalliances with Long Island cutie-pies). I ask you this: if we don’t give him a hug, who will? Not his teammates. Not the long-suffering and not particularly bright fans who drafted him in fantasy leagues. It’s us or nobody. Paul would be wise to accept our gracious offer.
Type of hug: Unconditional.

J.D. Drew, Boston Red Sox
We wonder whether the once hot-hitting Drew would accept a well-intentioned hug. He doesn’t seem to do anything the easy way, opting out of contracts on short notice and taking his time recovering from injuries. Yet on the rare occasions when he opens his mouth publicly, Drew comes across as a pretty OK guy, the sort whom you wish you’d gotten to know before he went off and screwed you over.
Type of hug: The stiff kind shared by two dudes who have a bunch of friends in common but don’t particularly care for one another.