Starting in December and ending on Opening Day, Joe Posnanski will count down the 100 greatest baseball players by publishing an essay on a player every day for 100 days. In all, this project will contain roughly as many words as “Moby Dick.” Yes, we know it’s nutty. We hope you enjoy.



Writers use the word “unique” too often.



I do, anyway.



I have used the word “unique” in place of more precise words like “rare” or “distinctive” or “special,” because “unique” has a certain power that those words lack. Something wonderful, like Mike Trout’s passion for baseball, sounds so much better if you call it unique, but it really isn’t. Stan Musial had a similar passion for the game. So did Pete Rose, Vlad Guerrero, Bob Gibson, Dale Murphy, Willie Mays, Tom Seaver and Raul Ibañez, along with a few hundred other people.



Don’t...