Numerically Speaking

In baseball, and other sports, the number on one’s uniform is handled in certain ways. Some numbers, after stellar careers, are retired. Most are reused. Depending on the career and the circumstances surrounding the player leaving the team, a number will either be reused immediately or after a while. But there should be a third category. Eliminated due to embarrassment or bad feelings. Sometimes you just want to forget a player was ever on your favorite team.

The Cubs have honored a few of their All-Time Greats by retiring the numbers of Santo, Williams, Sandberg, Banks, Maddux and Jenkins. Reusing number 17 is probably right, but it still feels awkward to see Mike Fontenot wearing it. As great as Mark Grace was for the Cubs, he probably doesn’t warrant it being retired.

But this season it’s a little disconcerting to see Cub phee-nom Tyler Colvin running around in number 21 and Xavier Nady wearing number 22. When I see the number 21, part of me thinks of Sosa and would rather that Colvin not be burdened with that. When I see 22 I think of stirrups pulled to the kneecaps and towel drills for the petulant Mark Prior. Nady should have a different number.

So here’s what I propose in handling uniform numbers. There should be a four tier system.

1) Retire the number for the franchise Hall of Famer (Ripken, Gwynn, Puckett)
2) Put the number in mothballs for a little while out of respect for an awesome player or fan favorite not quite worthy of retiring (Mark Grace, Rick Sutcliffe, Shawon Dunston)
3) Reuse the number immediately when needed (Mark Bellhorn, Henry Blanco)
4) Destroy the number never to be used again due to shame (Sosa, Bradley)

Or possibly a team could designate a certain number to be assigned to the player they want to forget. Unwittingly the Cubs did that by having both Sosa and Bradley wear 21. Although I guess if you knew in advance that player was getting the “Embarrassment Number” you wouldn’t sign him to begin with. Scratch that idea.

Some of this is subjective. I think most of Chicago would agree that Bradley was horrible in many, many ways. But there are still those people out there that think Sosa was great for the Cubs. “Look at the number he put up,” they’ll say. Don’t get me started on the fact that the reason he put up those big numbers is . . . HE TOOK DRUGS!!!!

Since some of the cases are more opinion than fact, each team could have an Official Uniform Number Handler (ok, the title is a little cumbersome, we’ll need to work on that). This person would make the determination whether a number gets reused right away, stored in moth balls or burned. We also have to be careful not to retire too many numbers. There are only so many to work with so retiring numbers can’t be done on a whim. Decisions would have to be immediate lest you have the Billy Williams Issue. Williams is a Hall of Famer and his number should have been retired before he landed in Oakland in the trade that brought us Manny Trillo. But his number was reissued. So the number 26 will always be attributed to Williams and, to a lesser extent, the comedy of losing a baseball in a baseball cap (Larry Biittner).

Many clubs are now following the trend of building a statue for special players. I think this is a great idea. Only the true “Hall of Fame” franchise players could have their numbers retired. The other big contributors (Grace, Hundley, Pafko) could be immortalized in bronze around the ballpark. I think most fans would enjoy walking among three-dimensional figures to relive the glory days of the players. And perhaps you have a Tier of Importance where a true Cub All-Star and Fan Favorite like Grace gets a full statue and someone of lesser stature gets a bust or a “facial plaque” like they have in Cooperstown.

The Cincinnati Reds have a couple of statues in front of the Great American Ballpark. Since both are in “action” poses it gives you a sense of the game.

It’s up to us fans to try and purge certain occurrences from our memories like Alou and Bartman or the 2004 September Collapse. But teams could help us purge the memories of Sosa, Bradley and the ilk by getting rid of the numbers and not having that memory trigger fire when we’re trying to watch our new batch of saviors take the field.

Which numbers would you have purged in baseball if this system were in place?