Retired Numbers

A while back, I read Joe Posnanski's article on retired numbers. Biggio retirement ceremony has got me thinking about it again.

Posnanski kind of slights the Astros on the quantity of numbers retired.

"No offense to the fine people of Houston but … that’s a few too many retired numbers for a 1960s expansion organization that has not yet won a World Series."

At first, this kind of pissed me off when I read it. It still does, but for different reasons. I used to be pissed off because he didn't know how fucking great Cheo Cruz and Jimmy Wynn were; now I'm pissed off because he presumes to know when Houston should retire a number.

Now that Biggio's number is retired, the Astros have retired 9 numbers:

34- Nolan Ryan
24- Jose Cruz
25- Jimmy Wynn
33- Mike Scott
49- Larry Dierker
32- Jim Umbricht
40- Don Wilson
5 - Jeff Bagwell
7 - Craig Biggio

Umbricht and Wilson's numbers were retired because of their tragic deaths. Wynn, Cruz, Scott, Ryan, Bagwell, and Biggio were all great players. Bags and Bidge are going to the hall of fame. Wynn probably should have gone, Ryan is already in, and Cruz is a borderline case who was beloved by Houston fans. Mike Scott very nearly took Houston to its first pennant. Dierker was our first really good pitcher and a fixture in the Astros organization for many years as a player, broadcaster, and manager.

It occurs to me that two other players are actually deserving of retirement: JR Richard and Joe Niekro. Both were great pitchers; both were loved by the fans. Richard stroked out on the field and was never the same. Niekro holds the Astros record for most wins (which is meaningless, I know, but he spent half of his career here and was only behind his brother and maybe Wakefield as a knuckleballer), which will likely be broken in the next few years by Oswalt.

Everyone is pretty certain that Berkman and Oswalt will have their numbers retired when they retire. Barring anything weird (Berkman goes out and shoots up downtown Houston / Oswalt turns out to be the anthrax terrorist), I'm sure they will be, too. JD and Brownie were saying that Oswalt and Berkman are in the middle of HOF careers. I'm inclined to agree, but we'll see in six years where everyone's at. Berkman's most similar batter (by similarity score) is David Ortiz, and I think everyone thinks he'll go in. In any case, it's way too early to start talking about this.

Anyways, that will mean the Astros will retire 11 numbers. I think Billy Wagner will probably be in the HOF not too long from now, and he'll probably go in as an Astro. Houston will be practically obligated to retire #13. So that's 12 numbers retired. That's a lot of jerseys. Especially for a club enfranchised in 1962. The Yankees are the only ones close, at 15 retired.

Some clubs have very strict rules about who gets their jerseys retired. The Mariners and Red Sox only permit those who have been inducted into the HOF to be retired. Most clubs have not retired anywhere close to the number Houston has.

But I don't think that's necessarily bad. There's nothing more like "Houston" than telling older cities, organizations, traditions, or whatever to fuck off. This is a city renowned for the oil boom - couldn't get much more "new money" than that until the internet bubble. We're a sprawling metropolis that flies in the face of what a city should be. The Astrodome - the symbol of this city and the Astros organization - was the biggest, tackiest architectural monstrosity money could buy. Older clubs played in parks like Yankee stadium and Fenway. We played on artificial grass with air conditioning and the home run spectacular. Our grounds crew wore fucking space helmets. We wore the rainbow guts. The Oilers played Run-and-Shoot. The Rockets had the Dream Shake. The Cougars redefined college basketball. The city of Houston doesn't give a shit about your fucking traditions.

So if we want to retire every fucking number between 1 and 99, and start issuing symbols and letters, then we can and will. I hope they retire Roger Clemens' number, too, even if he's denied a Hall of Fame spot for this steroids crap. Fuck them dumbass Yankees - he delivered us our first pennant. And you'll just have to deal with it.

I think the same applies for the Texans. We should retire every number the Oilers retired before Bud Adams consummated his relationship with the devil. And if Goodell has a problem with it he can shove it up his ass. The NFL fucked us over in 1997, and they let fucking Cleveland keep its club name, records, etc, while the legacy of the Oilers left for hillbilly country. Warren Moon and Earl Campbell didn't even fucking play in Tennessee, ever. Why the fuck should they get to keep their records and numbers? Campbell didn't cripple himself for Memphis, he did it for Houston.

Fuck. Now I'm all angry again. Fuck Bud Adams.