Hoarding Numbers

When I turned 38 a few weeks ago, I did the usual sports nut thing and took to trying to identify --in my head—any legendary (or even notable) athletes who wore number 38 on their jersey. There’s not many, but there are a few.

First off, there’s #38 Curt Schilling who pitched for my hometown club the Phillies. More importantly, he pitched for the Red Sox in 2004, helping them win the World Series less than a month before his 38th birthday.

Less famous and more legendary is #38 Leroy “Chucky” Mullins, who played college football for Ole Miss as a star defensive back before getting paralyzed during a game in 1989 against Vanderbilt. During Mullins’ short life, and since his death in 1991, he’s inspired a lot of people.

The there’s the “Z-Man”, the temperamental, once-inspiring Cubs pitcher #38 Carlos Zambrano, who gave up a 3-0 lead on opening day and might have well just thrown for 38 opposing team runs.

Beyond those three, I can’t think of anyone else, so I hope that this roster – a retired pitcher, and paralyzed and deceased football player and a Cubs pitcher being stereotypically Cublike--- doesn’t bode poorly for my next year of life at age 38.

But if I ever get sick this year, I’ll remind myself that it was with a 103 temperature at “The Flu Game” that Michael Jordan almost single-handedly beat the Utah Jazz. In that Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals, Jordan finished with an inspired 38 points.

It is a strange thing that some sports enthusiasts have a savant-like quality of being able to cough up sports-related numbers; whether it is jersey numbers, the score of a game 20 years ago, or a minor batting statistic of a forgotten about player. We always do this with the assumption that it matters to the rest of the non-sports-obsessed world, like anybody cares. Always terrible with numbers, I am one who is able to remember a player’s shirt number like his face or his stats in a way that suggests that I should have been good at Math. Only problem is, I stink at Math and at remembering other things too.

Yet jersey numbers do help. If I was given an address to a Saturday cookout somewhere, at, say 3144 West Irving Park Road, I would –knowing that I can’t handle numbers on their own—translate this to shirt numbers of notable players. I might remember it as Reggie Miller / John Riggins.

That’s #31 for Reggie Miller, who played with the Indiana Pacers; and #44 for John Riggins who punished other NFL teams with his yardage and won a Super Bowl with the Washington Redskins. Sometimes, this practice pains me, because, dammit, I hate the Redskins.

But it’s not just me…there is some significance to it all…this numbers and players business. Almost anytime you see an autograph of a player from any sport it is usually accompanied by a squad number. Beyond that, even bigger deals are made about numbers by players and clubs.

On June 11, the 2010 World Cup will feature an Argentina squad with a number 10 for the first time in 20-some years. Number 10 will be once again worn by Leo Messi, who is currently regarded as the world’s best soccer player. Yet #10 was last worn in the 1980s by the great Maradona, who now coaches Argentina.

For a long time, Argentina wanted, badly, to retire their number 10 in honor of their best-ever player, but FIFA, soccer’s governing body, wouldn’t let them. Then again, retiring numbers is world football isn’t very common.

Soccer’s only shirt number retired in the last two decades, to my knowledge, is that of Marc-Vivien Foé who wore number 23. Foé was an international from Cameroon who played his club career as #23 at Manchester City. Like Chucky Mullins, he had to die to get that honor of having his number retired, having passed from a sudden heart attack on the field –yes, during the game-- at the 2003 Confederations Cup. Not even Hank Gathers got his shirt number retired.

Anyhow, a month later David Beckham subsequently took #23, the unofficial story goes, to honor Foé while switching teams from Manchester United to Real Madrid. Besides, Becks’ old strip at United, #7, was already taken at Real. So in taking #23, Becks not only honored Foé, but took #23 for another reason too. Word has it that Becks took #23 to draw inspiration from another sports hero, one Michael Jordan.

In America, Jordan’s number carries a lot of clout and fanfare. LeBron James, the best basketball player in the world, now and potentially of all time, also wears #23 for the same reason. It’s after Jordan, but maybe also because LeBron is the only player up for the challenge of matching Jordan’s legacy.

Yet, if LeBron ever came to the Chicago Bulls (don’t get your hopes up, people) he would be forced to pick another number since #23 is retired by the club. The Bulls had originally retired Jordan’s shirt number in 1993, but it was resurrected in 1995 when, unannounced and to much fanfare, Jordan ditched the #45 jersey to start a game again as Number 23. Because the Bulls’ #23 was officially retired in the eyes of the NBA, both Jordan and the Bulls were fined to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars.

Like His Airness, LeBron, and others, Shaquille O’Neill has worn the same number throughout his career at several teams, number 32. Yet it was as #34 that Shaq won several championships with the Lakers, only because number 32 had been retired in honor of the great Magic Johnson.

One need not be famous to be savant-like and possessive about squad numbers. We’ve all had number 23s on our sports teams as adults and when we were kids. In my generation, most claim it to be like Mike. Although, I have one friend who said his 23 was for someone else; and he would not tell me who, forcing me to figure it out.

Answer: Ryne Sandberg. Not a hard guess, since I’m a Cubs fans and since my pal also has a dog named Prior (after Cubs pitcher Mark Prior). Since then, I have imagined there’s probably some die-hard Oakland A’s fan who has a dog named “Fingers” after Rollie Fingers, the great Hall of Famer pitcher. And why not? Rollie’s number, 34, was retired by two teams, the Milwaukee Brewers and the As, as was his handlebar moustache.

But this ain’t just a guy thing. For all of the sports I’ve played on a coed basis, plenty of women have staked their claim on #23 and #34 too.

One athlete friend of mine has had a lock on number 26 her entire life, and I have a hunch she dresses up her dog as #26, too. As a high school freshman she negotiated the lock on #26 for two sports –field hockey and lacrosse—and probably every intramural flag football game since. Her lifelong obsession, Philadelphia Flyers hockey and their great goal scorer Brian Propp, who wore #26, appears to be what burned this number permanently into her soul.

All in all, we hog our favorite numbers, just like we hog the ball for one reason only. It’s to grab a piece of the skills and good fortune that our favorite players bring to the sport, our team, and maybe, too, for the sake of a little self-inspiration.

And if there’s no Math involved, then hoarding numbers and inspiration is a wonderful thing.


Andy Frye writes a couple times a week about sports and life at MySportscomplex.blogspot.com and via My Sports / Complex on Facebook and Twitter.

Writings © 2010.