It is said that Vance Law was denied the jersey #2 after he signed with the White Sox in the early 80's and instead given the #5. While the carrot dangled in front of Law's face he was obviously perturbed as evidenced by this O-Pee-Chee card. Later on as the story goes, Vance unknowingly cursed the number 2 while playing both for the White Sox and the crosstown rival Cubs in his short career. While it's not widely known, what I'm about to present may be shocking as we pull up the corner of the carpet to find all that's been swept under Chicago sports fans' rugs. Of course, I'm talking about the curse of the #2 in Chicago sports teams. It can only be discussed now that the curse is seeming to lift. Let's dig into the history:
Exhibit A
1994 Cubs - Rick Wilkins wore #2 and batted .227 on the year.
2008 Cubs - "The Riot" wears #2 and currently is batting .331.
Coincidence? I'll let you decide.
Exhibit B
1987-88 Bulls - Brad Sellers wore #2 and was 1 of 7 (a mere .143) from 3 point land this season.
2007-08 Bulls - Just 10 years later, Thabo Sefolosha wears the same #2 but had a 3 point shooting percentage of .330 during the season.
Starting to see a pattern? Me too.
Exhibit C
1998-99 Blackhawks - While it's listed that Boris Mironov (wearing #2) scored 0 goals for the hometown Hawks this season, I seem to remember him scoring negative goals for the Hawks that season as well as the next few seasons he played. This was the only time in professional sports history that the NHL refs had to tie a Blackhawks jersey to the other teams goal to remind Mironov which net he was trying to score on. He still occasionally scored on his own net.
2007-08 Blackhawks - #2 Duncan Keith came in with 12 G's and 20 A's on the year as the mold on the #2 curse was being broken before our eyes.
I'll stop at Exhibit C. It goes without mentioning the string of subpar QB's that have worn #2 for the Bears (i.e. PT Willis, Will Furrer, etc).
Here's to breaking the curse!
Sincerely,
The Numbers Guy
"the numbers don't lie"
2 comments:
Thank you for making remember the Boris Mironov era. I had successfully forgot about him for the past 8 some years.
making me remember, sorry about the error in the comment
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