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    Friday, June 1, 2012

    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

    1 comment:

    1. Also, with regards to J.R. Richards earning a spot on the Astros Walk of Fame: he's now the only player on their Walk of Fame without his number retired. Now not retiring his number seems extra silly.

      ReplyDelete