Numbers

I've always been a numbers guy.

For example. I was born at 3:07 in the afternoon. Threes and sevens have always been my lucky numbers.

My apartment in New York was 39 M/N. A lot of threes in there. Thirteen to be exact.

My house is 103.

This year, 2017, add up the two and the one you get three, and there's a seven, too.

And on and on.

Got a story for you.

You know by now that my sister, Karen, is my wife Denise's best friend. Years ago Karen had a new apartment, address 303. I was in town and went to see her apartment for the first time. She knew of my fascination with threes and sevens and told Denise to watch, I'd say something.

Legend has it when I arrived and Karen opened the door I immediately said, "Apartment 303, huh? You're going to have good luck living here because three is one of my lucky numbers."

My father is 88 and when he was in his seventies he worked crossword puzzles to help keep his mind sharp.

I'm a baseball guy too and baseball is full of numbers. Those numbers hopefully help keep my mind sharp. Numbers disguised as home runs, earned run averages, strikeouts, pitcher's wins, hits, batting averages.

Having said that here are a few numbers that get me going.

714. Career home runs for the Babe. 755. Career home runs for the Hall of Famer who broke that record, Hank Aaron. 291. Strikeouts in one year for pitcher Randy Johnson. 511. Overall wins for the all time leader in wins, Cy Young. 56. Consecutive games Joltin' Joe DiMaggio hit safely. 251. Wins for my hero Bob Gibson. 383. The all time record for strikeouts in a year by one Nolan Ryan.


I play a game in my head with license plates. Whenever I pull up to a light if the car in front of me has a number on it's plate that corresponds to a number I know in baseball a light bulb in my head goes off and a smile crosses my face.

I like sports. Plural.

And while I'll watch the Super Bowl, the Masters, the World Series, the NBA Finals, the Olympics and more on television, I mainly get my sports info the old fashioned way, I read. Oh, I'll watch some sports shows, Pardon the Interruption and The Sports Reporters are two, but mainly it's the written word.

The New York Times and Sports Illustrated are my go tos.

I know of Michael Jordan,Wayne Gretzky, Tiger Woods, know of Peyton Manning, LeBron James, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. I know of Lionel Messi, Jim Brown and Michael Phelps.

I can talk sports with anyone but my passion has always been with the guys who hit the ball, catch the ball, and throw the ball. Baseball players.

So, I'll end this the way I started it.

I've always been a numbers guy.

And 

I have to add, a baseball guy.


#MarkMcEwen
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