Retired Numbers Series: Post-Script 1

Hardball Talk pointed out something interesting today: J.R. Richard thinks his number should be retired. I found this surprising, not because he's asking for his number retired, but because it isn't already retired. No, seriously; I wrote an entire piece about who the Astros should honor next and went through the whole process apparently thinking they had retired his number. Especially because the Astros have a precedent for cases like this, as seen in the cases of Don Wilson and Jim Umbricht. Richard was incredible in his shortened time with the Astros; why not honor that? Particularly since it wouldn't prove some huge shake-up in their methodology? Richard is being added to the Walk of Fame tonight; it's time they took it all the way.

One other tidbit I left out of my original Astros piece (although I re-added it in a comment) was that 57 hasn't been given out since Darryl Kile died. As I originally said, though, Kile pitched longer and better with other teams. I still think of him more as a Cardinal. I just don't see number being retired. 

In light of these, the revised Astros list (with some other updates in addition to those two):

Lance Berkman-17
Roy Oswalt-44

J.R. Richard-50
Billy Wagner-13

Joe Niekro-36
Cesar Cedeno-28

Jose Altuve-27
Jordan Lyles-41

Bud Norris-20

Wandy Rodriguez-51

Darryl Kile-57

Hunter Pence-9
Michael Bourn-21

Also, I added this in the comments of another piece as well, but I may as well continue here since this seems like the official place to do so. Tony La Russa got his number retired by the Cardinals a month or so ago, so I can update the Cardinals' list also:

Albert Pujols-5
Jim Edmonds-15
Ted Simmons-23
Mark McGwire-25
Adam Wainwright-50
Scott Rolen-27
Matt Holliday-7
Willie McGee-51
Chris Carpenter-29
Ray Lankford-16
Curt Flood-21
Keith Hernandez-37
Jaime Garcia-54
Joe Medwick-7
Johnny Mize-10
Joe Torre-9

Colby Rasmus-28