what's my favorite number in all the world? you got it? so why do i love when sports illustrated (or any other sports outlet) releases its "best player by number" deal??? for obvious reasons! and i know that the #40 is a total jobber*/middle relief/right fielder number, but, c'mon!!! the #40 is NOT very well represented in baseball! rick sutcliff for cryin' out loud?!?! all right, in a career that spanned the far reaches of 1976-1994 sutcliff was a: 3x all star, 79 R.O.Y., 84 NL cy young, 87 roberto clemente award (awesome!), etc.. not too shabby... ehh well. spent most of his career in the NL, so no doubt mike schmidt tagged him a time or two (5 to be "almost" exact)! is this the best picture of sutcliff that wikipedia could find/post by the way?
i mean... i'll stand around a group of kids and pick my nose from time-to-time too... but just add a cow bell and he looks like will farrell in this saturday night live skit:this little tid-bit, though, makes me proud to share the #40 with rick... from wikipedia, and i quote: "On May 10, 2006 after a long day of drinking and golfing with comedian Bill Murray, Sutcliffe attended a night game between the San Diego Padres and Milwaukee Brewers in San Diego..."
when will that situation ever turn out for the good?!?! ha-ha! bill, rick, next time you decide to golf & booze it up... call your boy, captain dummy!!! it goes on to say that "...he began a rambling and incoherent interview by saying, "It's not that busy man, it's not that busy." He then rambled on about off-the-wall subjects such as George Clooney and his daughter's "mission"... blah, blah, blah..."
his daughter's mission: to hook up the the captain! kidding! now i'm curious...
runner-up (and my vote): don wilson!
why you ask? never heard of him? me neither! until i went back to "old reliable, always true" wikipedia!!! don wilson's story is a more unfortunate, sad story... decent career, no hitter, good record... but found dead in his car... in the garage... engine running... that's not the reason, as i am not a morbid person... the thing that most caught my eye:
"wilson's career began after he graduated from compton community college in compton california"
that's right (turn your speakers DOWN!):
i once thought of transferring from CCAC to CCCC or C4! GO EL CAMINO!!!
i would feel like my name should really be "paco" just to fit in...
hometown pirates famous #40 you ask??? murtaugh! 2 TIME PITTSBURGH PIRATES WORLD SERIES CHAMPION-MANAGER!!! that statement really doesn't do him all the justice in the world. he was a good ball player, better manager and had a great eye for talent. in fact, he was the first manager to start an all minority line-up. the only reason i really don't "love him" is i heard that he really didn't see eye-to-eye with my boy roberto! maybe i'm wrong, maybe rumors are wrong... it was certainly a tough time for everybody and danny was, after all, a hard-ass... who knows, maybe everything was taken out of context! either way, glad to see the #40 is retired by my favorite baseball team!
...i can ONLY hope someday i have a wikipedia entry and one of the points start up "... after a long day of drinking and golfing with comedian bill murray..."
*many thanks to ThePensBlog for "jobber"... SUCH a great word that describes SO much!
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