Today's blog is a continuation of yesterday's entry where I unveiled my list of the best player in the history of each major sport to wear a particular number. Yesterday was numbers 0-49. Today we finish it off with 50-99.
And just like the first part of the list, Part II presents some of the same problems. All of those linebackers and wide receivers make some of the numbers in the 50s and 80s very hard, while the selection for a lot of numbers in the 60s and 70s is limited to offensive linemen and Joba Chamberlain. Then there are the obvious ones. The hockey players: 99, 66, 68, 77, 87. The linebackers: 51 (sorry Big Unit and Ichiro), 56. Jerry Rice's No. 80. Reggie White's No. 92. You're gonna see a lot of football players (primarily on the defensive side of the ball) on the second part of this list. That's what happens when the only guys who wear numbers that high are linemen.
As for the list, here we go:
50: David Robinson
51: Dick Butkus
52: Ray Lewis
53: Don Drysdale
54: Brian Urlacher
55: Orel Hershiser
56: Lawrence Taylor
57: Dwight Stephenson
58: Jack Lambert
59: Jack Ham
60: Chuck Bednarik
61: Nate Newton
62: Joba Chamberlain
63: Gene Upshaw
64: Jerry Kramer
65: Elvin Bethea
66: Mario Lemieux
67: Bob Kuechenberg
68: Jaromir Jagr
69: Tim Krumrie
70: Jim Marshall
71: Alex Karras
72: Carlton Fisk
73: Larry Allen
74: Bruce Matthews
75: Joe Greene
76: Marion Motley
77: Ray Bourque
78: Anthony Munoz
79: Roosevelt Brown
80: Jerry Rice
81: Tim Brown
82: Raymond Berry
83: Ted Hendricks
84: Shannon Sharpe
85: Nick Buoniconti
86: Buck Buchanan
87: Sidney Crosby
88: Lynn Swann
89: Mike Ditka
90: Neil Smith
91: Sergei Fedorov
92: Reggie White
93: John Randle
94: Charles Haley
95: Richard Dent
96: Cortez Kennedy
97: Jeremy Roenick
98: Julian Peterson
99: Wayne Gretzky
As you can see, it was slim pickings with some of those numbers in the middle. That's how you end up with Joba Chamberlain as the best No. 62 of all-time. In a close race, I think 69 edges 62 for weakest selection on the list. No offense to Tim Krumrie. Fortunately, there are a bunch of hockey players who became famous wearing unusually high numbers.
Choosing between offensive linemen isn't really that exciting, especially since all of the great ones (Anthony Munoz, Art Shell, Jackie Slater) all wore the same number, as did fellow Hall of Famer Bruce Smith. Same thing with all the wide receivers that wore No. 80 and No. 88, although Jerry Rice and Lynn Swann clearly stand out above the rest.
A couple of these numbers have fun stories attached to them, too. Sidney Crosby wears No. 87 because he was born on 8/7/87. Carlton Fisk was No. 27 on the Red Sox, but reversed it when he joined the White Sox. I think everybody knows the story about why Jaromir Jagr is 68, but Wayne Gretzky took 99 because Gordie Howe was his favorite player and that's Howe's number twice, and Ray Bourque changed his number from 7 to 77 (during a game) so that the Bruins could retire 7 for Phil Esposito. As for Joba Chamberlain, his superstition is that the digits in his number have to add up to eight, and when he was called up to the Yankees, 17, 26, 35 and 53 were all taken, while 44 is retired for Reggie Jackson, so 62 it was.
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