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Jose Iglesias gets Lou Whitaker's No. 1

Yeah, thought that the Tigers would have retired Sweet Lou & Tram's uni #s by now .:hmm:
 
Tigers missed their chance to retire #1 after Ray Oyler.

8482448_133156305411.jpg
 
I personally don't like retiring numbers. I get the fact why sport teams do it, but I do not believe in it.

From Pee Wee football to college, I could have worn #20. Get drafted by the Lions, and now I have to play with a different number. Lem Barney, Billy Sims and Barry Sanders. What if the number was retired after Lem Barney?

So Iglesias has a chance to enhance the jersey's legacy.
 
Why don't you believe in it exactly? I've always loved the way teams honor their great players in this way. It shouldn't be the jersey number that has a legacy, it should be the player or at least that's how I look at it.

If #20 was retired for Lem Barney, then Sims and Sanders would have worn different numbers and nobody would have thought anything of it. Pretty simple lol. I'd feel like puking if I saw a guy like Drew Miller stroll out in a #19 Red Wings jersey just because that's the number he wore in college or something lol.
 
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The only Tigers' player number that was retired with the player was Kaline's.
 
Where do we draw the line at retiring numbers though? Lou was good, very good even, but not an all time great.

I have no problem with someone else wearing that number. It doesn't take away from what Lou did.
 
If you just look purely at the numbers, Whitaker compares pretty favorably with the other Hall of Fame second basemen. He's probably middle of the pack statistically (there are 19 2B currently in the Hall). This combined with his longevity with the team, makes me think the Tigers should retire his number. Everyone remembers both him and Trammell so well, and they were together for so long, I think it'd be nice if they retired both together in one ceremony.
 
Look at how many uniform #'s the Yankees have retired.
http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/nyy/history/retired_numbers.jsp

Look at how many uniform #'s the Celtics have retired.
http://www.nba.com/celtics/history/RetiredNumbers.html

Even if the Tigers eventually retire Tram and Lou's #'s 3 and 1, it is just a select few and they are only Hall of Famers, exception of course Willie's # 23 for being a Detroit native and his history and love for the city which is mutual from the entire fan base.

I like the wall of fame with the other hall of fame Tigers names on it along with our beloved Ernie, several of which played in the era before uniform #'s were put on the jerseys.
 
Thumb said:
Where do we draw the line at retiring numbers though? Lou was good, very good even, but not an all time great.

I have no problem with someone else wearing that number. It doesn't take away from what Lou did.
Click to expand...

Hes a tigers all time great. First thing that popped into my head when i heard he was wearing lou's number is "thats not retired yet?" Was definitely surprised.
 
I don't think they should retire numbers either....and if they do it should be extremely rare. I don't think Lou qualifies for that. But really I'd rather see them do something else. Someone wearing Lou's number doesn't soil anything. If someone wears Barry Sanders number it doesn't change what he did.
 
UMRules06 said:
Why don't you believe in it exactly? I've always loved the way teams honor their great players in this way. It shouldn't be the jersey number that has a legacy, it should be the player or at least that's how I look at it.

If #20 was retired for Lem Barney, then Sims and Sanders would have worn different numbers and nobody would have thought anything of it. Pretty simple lol. I'd feel like puking if I saw a guy like Drew Miller stroll out in a #19 Red Wings jersey just because that's the number he wore in college or something lol.
Click to expand...

You are mixing words here. I do not like it is different then believing.

So, Barry Sanders wears #20 up until being drafted #1 by DET and then you tell him sorry, that number isn't available.

Players are usually in a team's Hall of Fame before they retire the number. Why both? The jersey is just a symbol.

Then, we retire numbers long after a player has ended his career, and after someone else has worn it. Does that diminish the gesture any? Because really, it is just a symbolic gesture.

Hypothetical. What if Miguel Cabrera or Justin Verlander wanted to wear #6? Or even #23? I don't see an issue. It actually might immortalize that number even more.
 
No to retiring 3 and 1. Whitaker's and Trammell's careers are not on a level with the other retired Tigers' numbers, Not even Horton's, and he's a special case for the fact that he's a native-born Detroiter. I don't think the Tigers should have retired 23 in the first place.
 
Retired numbers should be very selective and left that way. The Yankees are running out of two-digit numbers. 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 23, 32, 37, 42, 44, 49. 2 will be retired as well.

Jackson's, Guidry's, Mattingly's, Howard's, Maris's numbers should not be retired, IMO. Martin's either.
 
Rebbiv said:
You are mixing words here. I do not like it is different then believing.

So, Barry Sanders wears #20 up until being drafted #1 by DET and then you tell him sorry, that number isn't available.

Players are usually in a team's Hall of Fame before they retire the number. Why both? The jersey is just a symbol.

Then, we retire numbers long after a player has ended his career, and after someone else has worn it. Does that diminish the gesture any? Because really, it is just a symbolic gesture.

Hypothetical. What if Miguel Cabrera or Justin Verlander wanted to wear #6? Or even #23? I don't see an issue. It actually might immortalize that number even more.
Click to expand...

My bad, I didn't understand exactly what you meant at first. I do still disagree to a certain extent with some of your thoughts.

If Barry or another player wore #20 his entire career and then got drafted by Detroit, then yea you'd tell him "sorry that number is retired. What other number would you like?" Why is that such a bad thing? Unless a player is totally full of himself, they would understand and respectfully change. Maybe I'm naive, but I don't see why a player would cause a fit over that.

If Miguel Cabrera wanted to wear #6 it'd be the same thing. "Sorry Miggy, we love ya, but you gotta pick another number." Is Miguel going to get disgruntled and become a distraction because of this? Highly doubtful if not laughable lol. It's not about immortalizing the number, it's immortalizing the player.

I guess it's a pointless thing to have a discussion about anyway lol.
 
Jose Iglesias inherits ex-Tiger Lou Whitaker's vaunted No. 1.
Detroit ? Nobody ever asked for it. Until now.
For the first time since Lou Whitaker last wore it in 1995, the Tigers have a player on their 25-man roster wearing No. 1.

It?s new infielder Iglesias, who started at third base Friday against the White Sox, but no doubt will switch to shortstop if Jhonny Peralta gets suspended, as expected.

Iglesias wore No. 10 with the Red Sox.
?He can have No. 10 if he wants it,? said manager Jim Leyland, who wears No. 10. ?I?ll ask him. Then maybe people will rip the wrong guy.?

There are those, of course, who thought No. 1 was retired by the Tigers because it?s been so long since a player wore it.
Semi-retired is more like it.
Out of respect for how long Whitaker wore it (19 years), players didn?t initially ask for the number after he retired.

That went on so long, however, that a mystique developed about the number, meaning that instead of just not asking for it, players began to think they shouldn?t ask for it.

Infielder Jerry Manuel wore it before Whitaker, but it never had been that much of a celebrated number for the Tigers.

Shortstop Ray Oyler wore it four years (1965-68), infielder Fred Hatfield wore it for five (1952-56). But no Tigers player since Birdie Tebbetts (1939-47), according to Baseball Reference, wore No. 1 for more than five years before Whitaker.


Alan Trammell?s No. 3 is a different story, but only slightly.
Until Gary Sheffield requested it when he joined the Tigers in 2007, No. 3 hadn?t been worn since Trammell retired after the 1996 season.

Unlike Whitaker and No. 1, however, which he donned as soon as he reached the majors, Trammell wore No. 42 in 1977 before switching to No 3 in 1978.

Whitaker was No 1 all the way, though. There?s been no other No. 1 on the Tigers since 1977 ... until now.
When someone finally asked for it.
from the detnews
 
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