Adam Dunn entered the majors with a frame built for football and a swing built for the sky. He had been a quarterback at Texas before choosing baseball, and that decision gave the sport one of its most memorable power hitters of the 2000s. Dunn’s arrival in Cincinnati felt like a jolt. His first full season produced 128 walks and 26 homers, and people in the city began talking about him the way they once talked about raw sluggers from earlier eras.

Dunn became famous for the way he eliminated the middle ground. His at-bats almost always ended with a home run, a walk or a strikeout. It wasn’t a style that scouts of the time celebrated, but it anticipated the way the sport would look a decade later when front offices began to value exactly that profile. He topped 40 home runs in five straight seasons and reached 462 for his career, a number that still surprises people who didn’t follow him closely.

Despite the strikeouts, Dunn was admired by teammates for his humor, honesty and clubhouse presence. He never pretended to be anything other than what he was: a patient hitter with enormous strength who could change a game with a single swing.