Toronto Blue Jays starting pitcher Dylan Cease (84) pitches to the Los Angeles Dodgers during the second inning at Rogers Centre.John E. Sokolowski/Reuters
Bruce Grierson is a social-science writer based in Vancouver.
The Blue Jays knew Dylan Cease was an unusual cat when they picked him up in the offseason to bolster their pitching rotation. The aura around him – the flowing locks, the Zen-master cool – recalled the mythic Sidd Finch, the unhittable Eastern mystic and fictional April Fool’s Day creation of writer George Plimpton for Sports Illustrated. When Cease took to the mound in his debut, the parallel was complete. The ball dipped and dangled and finally just blew by hitters. (In his three subsequent starts he has been, if not Immovable, at least Radiant, Zenwise). The only hint of the origin of the sorcery was Cease’s jersey number: 84. That’s the number of yoga poses in the Hatha tradition – a number representing, in various Eastern cosmologies, perfect harmonic completeness.
This is how pro athletes speak to us. Confined to their regulation PJs and constrained by their often limited palette of verbal expression, they’re left to convey their personality, their individuality, their story through their choice of jersey number. To my mind, hunting for those Easter eggs has always added another level of intrigue to the game.
Leftwinger Gino Odjick of the Vancouver Canucks moves down the ice during a game against the Washington Capitals at the USAir Arena in Landover, Maryland, in 1997.Doug Pensinger/Allsport/Getty Images
Gino Odjick wore number 29 for my hometown Vancouver Canucks during their spirited Stanley Cup run in 1994. Odjick, from the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation, was a role model to younger Indigenous players in the NHL. You could still enjoy watching that heart-on-his-sleeve guy play without knowing that he chose 29 because it’s a number his father was assigned when he was forcibly sent to a residential school as a boy. But knowing it gave both the man and his game more meaning.
Pittsburgh Penguins hockey star Jaromir Jagr, a Czech national, wore 68. This seemed a playful topping of captain Mario Lemieux’s 66. But it was actually to commemorate the year of the Prague Spring, when citizens rose up against the stifling Communist regime.
Calgary Flames right wing Jaromir Jagr, of the Czech Republic, waits for a face-off against the Colorado Avalanche on Nov. 25, 2017.The Associated Press
The gigantic Senagalese-born basketball centre Tacko Fall, a Muslim man, wears number 99 in reference to the 99 names of Allah. Former Nashville Predators’ captain Mike Fisher, a Christian, wore number 12 after Romans 12:12: “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” At the 1928 Olympics, the great Canadian sprinter Percy Williams wore bib number 667 – so he’d stay one stride ahead of the devil.
Sometimes the numeric conversation is a private tribute, intended not so much for fans as family. Quarterback Peyton Manning carried his older brother’s number 18 into the pro career his brother was never able to realize; Cooper Manning suffered a spinal injury in college, and never played football again. Kevin Garnett switched his number to 2 – his former Timberwolves teammate Malik Sealy’s number – after Sealy was killed by a drunk driver on the way home from Garnett’s 24th birthday party. Kevin Durant’s number 35 is a tribute to his first basketball coach, who was murdered at age 35. It’s both a nod to the man – a mentor and father figure – and a memento mori. Durant has said it reminds him that violent death can come in an instant.
Michael Jordan went with 23 because his brother Larry wore 45, and Michael maintained he was half the man his brother was.
Michael Jordan celebrates the Bulls win over the Portland Trail Blazers in the NBA Finals in Chicago in 1992.John Swart/The Associated Press
Some number choices seem a little … overdetermined. Utah Jazz power forward Andrei Kirilenko claimed 47 because he hailed from Izhevsk, Russia, the birthplace of rifle designer Mikhail Kalashnikov. (His nickname was there on a plate: AK-47.) Indiana Pacers star Paul George was persuaded by Jimmy Kimmel to change his number from 24 to 13, so he’d be “PG-13.” Gilbert Arenas wore number 0 when he joined the Golden State Warriors so he could take on the superheroish glow of “Agent Zero” – but that wasn’t the only reason. It was also a jab at his former coach who, noting Arenas’s attitude problems, told him that zero was how many minutes he would play in the NBA.
Los Angeles Clippers forward Paul George (13) shoots over Minnesota Timberwolves guard Nickeil Alexander-Walker during a basketball game.Marcio Jose Sanchez
Dennis Rodman wore number 70 with the Dallas Mavericks because they wouldn’t let him wear 69. Enough said.
Jersey numbers can be a kind of Rorschach test: you see in them what you want to see. When the great soccer goalie Gianluigi Buffon chose number 88 for his Italian club Parma, fascism hunters took the number to be a dog whistle to Nazis (H is the eighth letter in the alphabet, hence 88 is “Heil Hitler.”) The goalie insisted it was simply a sign that he “had double the balls of most men” – an explanation only a little less unwelcome.
Is it coincidental that Jackie Robinson’s 42 is also the number representing the meaning of life for science fiction geeks? Of course it is. Robinson predated The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by decades, and anyway, Douglas Adams says he picked that number because … it didn’t mean anything.
Miami Marlins players wore #42 for Jackie Robinson Day.Rhona Wise/Reuters
Likewise with number 93. That number has cosmological significance – the Earth is roughly 93 million miles from the sun, and the observable universe is thought to be about 93 billion light years wide. I figured that’s why Ryan Nugent-Hopkins of the Oilers, who seems like a smart guy, chose it. But no. When queried about 93, he shrugged and replied: “It was available.”
Whether the equipment manager assigned it or the athlete themselves called dibs, maybe it’s really fate that’s doling out that number. And a million different stories are set in motion.
In Don DeLillo’s 1972 novel End Zone, Gary Harkness, the running back for the fictional Logos College Screaming Eagles and the philosophical hero of the story, wore number 44. That’s the same number Bob Kimball chose a few years later. Bob was the brainy middle linebacker on the football team at Strathcona Composite High, my Edmonton alma mater. He was the guy everyone wanted to be. Like Gary, he met an untimely end. Somehow, to me, in the intersection of memory and imagination, Bob Kimball and Gary Harkness are the same person: tragic heroes bound together by the number the angel of protection is said to wear, for both home and away games.