Tradition Tuesday: The Pink Polo Picks

Gather 'round, kids. Amidst all of this baseball jibber-jabber, it's time for everyone's favorite House of Georges stronghold: Tradition Tuesday.

If this is your first time inside the House, allow me: The rough focus of this blog is the rivalry between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Denver Broncos. Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, The Tradition -- wherein Cecil and Seven matriculate out to the Truman Sports Complex to cheer for the Broncos, and I, in my woolen cap, get beer thrown on me at Mile High Stadium while I cheer for the Chiefs -- was born. It's a grand old time twice a year. And 60 percent of the time, the home team wins all the time. We smoke pork, tobacco, and the occasional bowl of drugs. We drink Pabst. We sometimes invite the wives, and when we don't, we promptly visit the local nudie bar set up a volunteer booth at an urban intersection in a neighborhood of need and provide warm meals and counseling.

The games our one of our few remaining outlets of diversion, and in an effort to keep the thread alive around the calendar, we bring you Tradition Tuesday, our weekly state-of-the-rivlary address.

Today is Tuesday, April 7. There's a point to my mentioning it, and you'll see it in due time. Like right now: Bob Gretz has a piece over at the Chiefs Web site, and it has some interesting news. That news pertains to the jersey digit(s) selection of the Chiefs new quarterback. Now, before we get into it, let's take a second and remember that Chiefs Head Coach Todd Haley has said that Matt Cassel has not been automatically awarded the starting job; he'll have to earn it.

If and when you go to Gretz's story, though, it's interesting to think about players' preferences, and ultimately, their options when it comes to picking shirt numerals. Like Joe Montana when he came to town, Old No. 16 is forever unavailable to Kansas City signal-callers. Montana, as you may know, went with 19. Now, keep in mind that I've done zero research on this. What? That's protocal around here. But there were, post-Montana, a few boneheads that came in and threw the ball around.

Steve Bono, chucklehead that he was, wore number 13, which, for the superstious, is kind of like saying "Hey, set up a ladder behind me so that every time I take a snap, I back up through it." Or, "Make sure a black cat runs across the field after each huddle break." Or, you break a mirror in the locker room. Maybe you knock over the salt at the Saturday-night team dinner table. You get the point.

Elvis Grbac. I'm not sure what he was thinking. As a San Francisco 49er, he wore 18. When he got to Kansas City, it must've been spoken for, because he went with 11. But then he switched to 18. For his brief, final stint as a Baltimore Raven, he was again, 18. Perhaps his favorite player as a kid wore 18. I dunno. In comes Trent Green, who wore 10. Ten's a nice, round number, one that he has worn his entire career. Or at least I think he has. His successor, Brodie Croyle, wore 11 in college, 12 in the pros, which is kind of like saying that he was taking it to the next level after Alabama, and well, we all know how that worked out for him.

Next was Tyler Thigpen. Did he pick four because of Brett Favre? Perhaps he did, and if that's accurate, it would subscribe to the theory once voiced by our very own Old No. 7, which was something along the lines of "All these young, up-and-coming quarterbacks these days are wearing seven because of their favorite quarterback growing up: John Elway." I of course, called hogwash on the theory, and asked for some non-Wikipedia, HTML-formatted, researched-and-substantiated evidence, to which he replied: "Well, there's J.P. Losman, Mike Vick..." And that was kind of the end of that conversation.

But now, several years later, the not-yet-admitted-by-the-suits, quote/unquote quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs has selected his number, and yes -- you guessed it, it's seven. No, no. I kid you not. You can actually buy one already, here. Cassel, as Gretz reports, will be the 11th guy to don that digit, and "Combined they played in 47 games, or less than one game for each of the 49 seasons of games in franchise history." Gretz also reminds us that "The last guy to wear No. 7 was kicker Justin Medlock, who survived the opening game of the 2007 season and was released, one of the biggest kicking failures in Chiefs history."

As Gretz's column suggests, seven is a lucky number in some cultures, religions. Whether or not it will be for Cassel is of course, yet to be seen. I'm interested to know what Chiefs fans think, so as you're all so prone to do, flood the comments with your opining.