For all this winter’s talk about Marco Scutaro’s on-base percentage, Jacoby Ellsbury’s defensive statistics, and Daisuke Matsuzaka’s time missed due to injury, there are a few Red Sox number-related issues that still just don’t add up.
- Media reports and sportsradio callers love to talk about how there are six pitchers vying for five spots in the starting rotation. This may be arithmetically correct, the practical fact is that there are two pitchers vying for the fifth rotation spot only: Tim Wakefield and Clay Buchholz. Wednesday’s news about Matsuzaka’s sore back changes nothing about this since the condition is not deemed serious. But it would simplify the equation should it prove to be more severe – as long as Wakefield’s apparent back stiffness clears up and no one else gets hurt along the way.
- A Boston Herald article the other day made mention of the fact that the Oakland A’s trailed the major leagues in attendance last season, drawing just over 1.4 million fans. (The Red Sox finished eighth, with something over 3 million.) Time was, anything over 1 million was cause for satisfaction, if not celebration. Have the times – and team operating expenses – changed so much that this is now tantamount to bankruptcy? Startling to consider, as is the article’s premise that the Red Sox record 550-game consecutive sellout streak could be in jeopardy due to (a) the economy and (b) what writer Steve Buckley calls “the possibility that the Red Sox won’t be as exciting as they’ve been in years past.” Personally, I’d take a tight, defense-intensive, well-pitched ballgame over a slugfest any day. But perhaps there are others in the Nation who disagree …
- It took Jeremy Hermida three tries to come up with a number to wear on the back of his uniform. Discovering upon his arrival that his Marlins No. 27 is retired by the Sox (Carleton Fisk, for those of you who’ve been living in a cave these past 30 years), he then opted for 23 – only to find out that co-newcomer Mike Cameron used his seniority as a veteran player to claim it for himself. Hermida finally settled on 32. (See boston.com for a listing of the numbers being worn by many of the other new arrivals.)
- In case you missed it, Ellsbury also is changing numbers, swapping the 46 he’s worn since arriving in the major leagues for No. 2. “It’s the number I wore at Madras High and I've always wanted it since,” he told The Madras (OR) Pioneer a few weeks ago. “I tried to get it at Oregon State, and I've wanted it ever since I was called up.” The number had been taken by former Red Sox bench coach Brad Mills, who left the club to manage the Houston Astros.
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Comments
I am sure the Red Sox will be disappointed that they will now have all kinds of people buying new pink #2 jerseys to replace their pink #46 jerseys.
Does MLB treat a player changing their number the same way that the NFL does? A couple years back there was a big flap about Chad Johnson wanting to change to OchoCinco and needing to buy the stock of Johnson jerseys if he changed it. Do you think Ellsbury now has a warehouse full of pink #46's someplace?
No question; marketing is king -- that's precisely why there's a new practice hat or uni, and alternate game wear, practically every year! Number selection is pretty much up the player and the team, except now in the case of #42, which is retired baseball-wide to honor Jackie Robinson. Part of the fun as a fan is watching the interaction between the new guy and the guy who already has his number -- some pretty notable transactions have taken place over the years in this regard! (See Henderson, Rickey, who in 1993 paid the immortal Turner Ward $25,000 for the right to wear #24 as a Blue Jay.)
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