The first sports talk radio show I listened to regularly (and willingly*) did a daily countdown of the top three players across all sports** by their uniform number. I am planning to do an updated/expanded list one day, but for now I'm going to list the eight greatest players to wear Number Eight across all major North American sports, for reasons that will become clear soon...
*fvck Mike Franceser
**this was an ESPN show, so "all" sports means "all sports that the host has passable knowledge about" although I became a loyal listener when Jari Kurri was mentioned.
To compile this list, I scrolled through every Sports Reference page under 'frivolities' and looked over each list of players who wore Eight - then I discarded any who wore a different number for a significant part of their careers. We're looking for True Eights here - which excludes Kobe Bryant.
I won't give you a list of 'just missed the cut' players, but I will say that soccer and basketball(both men's and women's) were considered. I'll defer to ESPNW for the greatest eight in WNBA annals, since there's no link to that league's uniform number tracker on basketball-reference.
Futbol was a tough one as well. There's no player-by-number list here, either. Understandable since soccer has so many worldwide leagues and nearly all of the players wear low numbers. Sportskeeda ranked the eight greatest eights in soccer nearly four years ago; Andres Iniesta was the top player they chose. I was unfamiliar with him before the 100 Greatest Athletes list but I had heard of the other top four players - Steven Gerrard, Hristo Stoichkov, and Lothar Matthaus.
There are no men's basketball players on this Top Eight list, either. When you see the names, you'll see why I couldn't justify adding Walt Bellamy or Antoine Walker.
Enough explaining...let's get to the eight greatest eights.
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| Hey.. that's a 9, not an 8! |
Cal might not be the best #8 strictly by the numbers, and if I were hosting that radio show today I'd rank him third, Selanne or Steve Young second, and Alex Ovechkin first. Then I'd count the seconds until I was bombarded by combative comments. Where's Yogi Berra, you idiot??!? What's a Teemu, anyway?
Now for an announcement.. the theme of this post is a nod to my upcoming Eight Year anniversary blogging (primarily) about sports and sports trading cards. On at least two occasions I considered ending the blog or leaving indefinitely, but I'm still here. However I do plan to go dark after the completion of the Athletics series and revert this to a personal journal for a while.
But we're not there yet... there's another milestone post up next, and then three more about the Athletics. And maybe a couple more topics mixed in, before the curtain falls on The Collector.
Thanks for reading!
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1. Great list! I knew Cal would be there but I was dying to see who else you'd come up with.
ReplyDelete2. Happy almost 8 years!
3. As someone whose blog name is a play on a Simpsons quote, I salute you for a reference to a great episode starring Comic Book Guy!
Another Gr8 article Chris however Berra wore #35 as a rookie but if ya add it up equals 8 as for Teemu had #13 once in his career
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to jersey #'s... 8 is definitely in my top 10 favorites. It starts with Kobe Bryant and Kurt Suzuki... two personal favorites. Then there's Joe Pavelski. One heck of a Shark. Hasselbeck wore that number in Seattle. Plus the greats like Pops, Yogi, Yaz, and Cal. Very solid #.
ReplyDeleteI think I'm pretty close to being done with card blogging too. I'm already down to averaging just a post or two per month, but I think by next year it's gonna be like maybe one post every couple of months or so. My collecting interests have been changing again, and while I still enjoy the stuff I'm getting, I just don't have much desire to talk about it publically anymore.
ReplyDeleteInteresting list! Bummer you're calling it quits...the occasional post is better than nothing at all!
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