George Sullivan - Any Number Can Play: The Numbers Athletes Wear
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Includes anecdotes recounting the history and lore associated with the numbers on athletes uniforms.
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Published by The Millbrook Press, Inc. 2 Old New Milford Road Brookfield, Connecticut 06804 www.millbrookpress.com
Copyright 2000 by George Sullivan All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sullivan, George, 1933 Any number can play: the numbers athletes wear / George Sullivan; illustrated by Anne Canevari Green. p. cm. Includes index. Summary: Includes anecdotes recounting the history and lore associated with the numbers on athletes' uniforms. ISBN 0-7613-1557-8 (lib. bdg.) 1. Sports uniformsHistoryJuvenile literature. 2. Sports uniforms AnecdotesJuvenile literature. [1. Sports uniforms. 2. Sports History. 3. SportsMiscellanea.] I. Green, Anne Canevari, ill. II.Title. GV749.U53 S853 2000 796.'028dc21 00-021476
Page 3
Introduction
As the 1998 baseball season entered its final stages, an electrifying home-run race developed between sluggers Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals and Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs. Which one of the two would be the first to surpass Roger Maris's single-season mark of 61 home runs, one of the most revered of all sporting records?
Television cameras followed McGwire and Sosa everywhere. They were in the stadium parking lots before games and in the dressing rooms afterward. When either player emerged from the dugout to take a turn at the plate, the cameras zoomed in.
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Reports of their home runs were carried on the front pages of newspapers across the country. Sports sections of newspapers featured special "Homer Watch" boxes.
On August 19, McGwire took over the lead from Sosa with a pair of home runs at Wrigley Field in Chicago. So began a home-run binge for McGwire that had him hitting 15 homers in 66 at bats.
McGwire smacked No. 59 just before the Cardinals began a five-game series against the Cubs at their home park, Busch Stadium. His 60th homer came on September 5. Only three players had ever hit as many as 60 home runsMaris, of course, and Babe Ruth. Sosa at the time had 57.
McGwire hit No. 61 to tie Maris on September 7.
On the night of September 8, McGwire stepped into the batter's box with two out and no one on base in the fourth inning. Chicago's Steve Trachsel fired a sinking fastball. The 6-foot-5, 230-pound (196-cm, 104-kg) McGwire lashed out at the pitch, sending it low toward left field. The ball cleared the wall, caromed off an advertising sign, and dropped onto a walkway that circled the stadium beneath the seats.
McGwire's home-run production didn't stop at 62, nor did the home-run race. McGwire and Sosa continued to battle during the season's final weeks. McGwire, with a home-run blast on each of his final two at bats, boosted his total to 70, an undreamed-of figure. Sosa finished the season with 66.
With all those home runs, Mark McGwire lifted himself in the record book and earned himself a place in the baseball Hall of Fame. And, as Sports Illustrated noted, he also "made a permanent name for himself in American folklore."
The home-run duel had another effect. In the months that followed, baseball jerseys with McGwire's No. 25 and Sosa's No. 21
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were sold by the hundreds of thousands to kids (and to grown-ups, too) who wanted to wear the number.
It happens all the time. When Michael Jordan, judged by many to be the greatest basketball player of all time, was helping to win championships for the Chicago Bulls, his No. 23 jersey was worn by kids everywhere basketball was playedand some places it wasn't played. Sports columnist Ira Berkow tells of friends of his on safari in Africa, who saw children come out of huts without electricity and running water wearing Jordan's No. 23 jersey.
It's the same with young female athletes. When the U.S. soccer team won the women's world title in 1999, sales of T-shirts and jerseys blazoned with Mia Hamm's No. 9 and Brandi Chastain's No. 6 surged.
To kids, the uniform number his or her favorite athlete wears is a serious matter. In May 1995, when Michael Jordan suddenly decided to change his uniform number to No. 23 from No. 45, a great ruckus resulted. All over Chicago, angry parents who had purchased No. 45 jerseys for their kids showed up at sporting goods stores demanding that the No. 45s be replaced with No. 23s. "I told them to hang on to their 45 jerseys," said one dealer. "They could be worth something someday."
As this suggests, uniform numbers are a direct link between a fan and his or her hero. There's something personal and satisfying about wearing a jersey that bears your favorite player's number.
The players themselves take uniform numbers even more seriously. Sometimes a player becomes attached to a certain number in high school or even earlier and may feel that the number has an effect on how he or she performs. It's something like wearing lucky socks or eating a certain food before a game.
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