#5.cromartie wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23, 2024 7:02 amThis is a great great great topic. And this post is a bit of a repeat but I hope it brings some more things into focus.
Here are seven questions that are asked in the evaluation process of whether or not to retire a number:
1) Are they a Hall of Famer?
2) Did they help a team win a championship?
3) Do they meet a longevity threshold for tenure with the team?
4) Did they have significant statistical/award based achievements with the team?
5) Are they from, or did they make a significant contribution to the community?
6) Was there some sort of tragedy?
7) Can I piggyback that retirement in on someone else?
Unless you're an absolutist, you can use this criteria to determine when you get enough Yes answers to justify a number retirement, I think. You don't have to weigh these questions equally, either. But, to me, there is clearly a threshold here to justify circumstances under which a number is retired.
While it's always a nice and kind gesture if a player reaches out to the community off the field, from a fan's perspective it is still of secondary importance compared to his performance on the field. There is already a commendation award for players who reach out to the community in the form of the Tom Pate Memorial Award, and a fair amount of Lions have won the award:
2016 - Marco Iannuzzi
2006 - Mark Washington
2003 - Steve Hardin
1999 - Jamie Taras
1992 - Danny Barrett
1989 - Matt Dunigan
1986 - Tyrone Crews
Whenever there's a discussion on top, best, favourite players will these players be often mentioned? Unlikely.
And with the exception of #60 - Jamie Taras who had a long tenure and an all-star, will these players have their numbers retired? Unlikely.
And in two cases, winning the award didn't improve the fans perspective of him.
In 1992 Danny Barrett was a huge disappointment in that he was expected to effectively replace Doug Flutie as the Lions starting QB, and that he failed to do.
After the 1989 season, Matt Dunigan got into a huge dispute with the new management led by Joe Kapp on bonus money he expected to receive after all his community work. When he didn't receive the expected bonus money, he demanded a trade.
#6.
While it's always very sad and tragic when somebody passes away, there are other ways to give tribute than to retire their number. Perhaps a small memorial inside the stadium can suffice as a number retirement banner should be reserved for his on-field performance and dedication to his team and not act as his tombstone.
In some cases, it can cause more trouble, controversy, and confusion. The first number that the Vancouver Canucks retired (unofficially) was #11 Wayne Maki who played 2.5 seasons from 1970-72 but there was definitely no banner hung so Canucks fan may be confused as to why his number was retired. The number was retired as a tribute for Wayne Maki because he passed away of brain cancer and most Canucks fans may not know about that. And then controversy occurred when Mark Messier arrived to the team in 1997 and was given #11 after the number was supposedly retired.