I think that the most lovable baseball player of all time has to be the late Moe Drabowsky, former relief pitcher for almost all major league baseball teams over a seventeen year career. He was renown as a prankster who could also pitch a little. One can look up his bio on Baseball-Reference.
Here are some of the neat things he did. He loved snakes, and put a garter snake into the great Camillo Carreon's pocket. He also loved incendiary pranks, like throwing cherry bombs into Chief Noc-A-Homa's tepee in Atlanta. His greatest prank of all was giving Commissioner Bowie Kuhn a hotfoot.
His best years were with the Orioles in 1966 through 1970. During that time, he used to barbecue sausages out in the bullpen until stopped by manager Hank Bauer when the Orioles started to lose in 1967. His most famous trick occurred during a game against one of his former teams, the KC Royals. This was also documented in Jim Bouton's book, "Ball Four." Late in a game against Kansas City, Moe inexplicably called the KC bullpen and growled, "Get Krause hot!" To his dismay, Lew Krause got up and started to warm up. After a few minutes, he called again, "Sit him down." Krause returned to the bench.
Drabowsky could also pitch some. He was called in early to relieve Dave McNally in the first game of the 1966 World Series against the Dodgers and Sandy Koufax. Yours truly watched this game on NBC on a sunny October day almost a half century ago. Moe came to the mound and struck out six straight batters, finishing the game with 11 ks , 2 walks and only 1 hit over 6 2/3 innings. Although I was a Dodgers fan at the time and Sandy Koufax lost the game with dubious fielding in left with Willie Davis committing four errors, Moe's feat imprinted an indelible mark into my baseball lore.
He even had a Canadian connection having played for the Truro Bearcats of the Nova Scotia Amateur League and managing Vancouver after his pitching career ended.
Indeed, for me, Moe Drabowsky was more beloved than my second favourite, Stan Musial and my third favourite, Whitey Ford.
PS During the sixties, the Yankees bullpen pitchers grew lovely tomatoes in their bullpen. Everyone had fun back then.
