Dave Concepcion
Posted by Andy on August 27, 2007
Dave Concepcion had his number retired by the Cincinnati Reds the other day, and I wanted to write a bit about him.
From an offensive statistic standpoint, it's hard to find his name at the top of many lists. He was a solid player for many years, highly regarded enough to make 9 All-Star games and win 5 Gold Gloves.
Using a search as I did in my last post, here are all of the players, by team, to have at least 900 R, 900 RBI, and 300 SB:
Franchise Number Players Matching +---------------------------------+------+-----------------------------------------+ Cincinnati Reds 2 Dave Concepcion / Barry Larkin Chicago Cubs 1 Ryne Sandberg Houston Astros 1 Craig Biggio Kansas City Royals 1 Amos Otis San Diego Padres 1 Tony Gwynn San Francisco Giants 1 Willie Mays
That's a short list, and there's our man right at the top. Incidentally, if you remove the team restriction, there are 25 players to have done it in their careers (but most playing for different teams, such as Reggie Sanders.)
August 27th, 2007 at 8:02 am
Here's a bit of trivia that I thought up...13 was the highest uniform number in MLB that had never been retired. Concepcion is the first #13 ever to be retired. I was saving this bit of Trivia for ARod's retirement, but Concepcion is the first.
The new highest unretired number is 28 (the comes 38, 46, 47 and 48).
August 27th, 2007 at 8:25 am
That's neat. Where were you able to find that info?
August 27th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Well, I did a lot of research, and then started a Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_retired_numbers
Since the creation of the page, many people have helped to add information to what I started.
August 27th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
Holy cow, that is a fantastic page....thanks!
August 27th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
I don't have the kind of databanks I'd like to do real uniform number analysis. Who else where's #13? Edgardo Alfonzo and Ozzie Guillen wore #13 in honor of Dave Concepcion. When becoming manager of the Yankees, Joe Torre requested #13 but it belonged to utility man Jim Leyritz. I figure there aren't many #13s out there because it is thought to be an unlucky number.
So lowest unretired number in MLB is 28. John Kruk sold #28 to Williams for two cases of beer. Billy Goodman of the Bosox wore #28 (he's tenth all time for Bosox in singles and in times on base). Sparky Lyle wore #28 for the Bosox. But the Bosox only retire numbers of HOFers who played at least 10 years for them. Jim Hickman of the Cubs (he's 8th all-time for Cubs in At Bats per Home Run). None of them seem ever likely to be retired.
Today, Prince Fielder and Curtis Granderson wear #28. Maybe someday one of them will be the first to retired #28. But I wonder if in the future very many players will stay long enough with a single team to earn a retired number.
Anyone know of any other #28s who might be close to worthy of retirement?
P.S. A number of HOFers wore #28 briefly in their careers: Nellie Fox, Gaylord Perry and Joe Medwick in their rookie years, Bucky Harris (during 2 of his years with the Senators), Waite Hoyt (1/2 season with the Athletics), Al Simmons with his late career returns to the Athletics in 1941 and 1944, Duke Snider in the final year of his career (a season with the Giants), Billy Williams in the final two years of his career (two seasons with the Athletics).