On Friday night (June 23, 2017) the Red Sox retired David Ortiz’s number 34. It was a special honour for a special player. Some will still gripe that he only contributed on one side of the game, but so does Tom Brady and nobody is denigrating his career because of that fact, nor should they. I know cross-sport comparisons like that are almost universally worthless, but I had the urge to get a mention of another Boston sports icon in here. So there it is. Ortiz was an incredible hitter. Go look at his stats pages on BRef, FG, and BP. There is obviously overlap across those sites, but each offers some unique aspects that are worth check out. In any case, Ortiz’s number 34 getting posted up on the right-field facade at Fenway Park got me thinking about who else could/should get the honour from the Red Sox. As I reviewed the Red Sox uniform number history I found that there are a few guys who would no doubt get the honour at their number, a seriously difficult decision at one number, some interesting alternate-universe history that would have other numbers retired, and of course projected the current group of youngsters for eventual celebration.
Head to BP Boston to check out my thoughts on retiring more numbers: Crunching Some Jersey Numbers.
Photo of Red Sox Retired Numbers - FoxSports.com