These are lists for another day, but this song would rank in the top 5 of both "Greatest Movie Montages" and "I'm Hungover As Shit, And I Know It's Only 11am....But You Wanna Crack A Beer Anyway?"
I name these playlists by jersey numbers, so that I can identify which playlist is which. A playlist of songs that have all been played 9 times is named 'Nick Van Exel'. Songs that have been played 19 times, 'Josh Beckett.' And so on and so on. Yeah, I suppose I could just name the playlist 'Nineteens' or something, but what fun is that? Get a fucking imagination.
(This is sorta unrelated, but it always cracked me up when Lane, another big believer in using jersey numbers as identifiers, had to give out his phone number in college. His number was XXX-1413, and he would tell people "XXX, Kent Hrbek, Kent Hrbek minus one." If they couldn't figure it out, they didn't get his digits.)
ANYWAY, sometimes the playlist is named after one of my favorite athletes (as per the above two examples) but sometimes it's just the first athlete that pops into my head when I think of that jersey number. The other day, I created a list of songs that had been played 35 times. I cleared my head, and the first name that flew in there was....Marion Butts. Marion Butts?
I know I spend an inordinate amount of time wishing it was 1994, but this was still pretty weird. I hadn't even thought about him in probably 15 years. It's like having a sex dream about a girl you haven't been friends with since 7th grade- what up, Amanda.
I thought this whole Butts thing was really bizarre (we're talking about Marion again now, not Amanda) so I polled a cross-section of my friends, asking who was the first athlete they thought of when they thought of #35. Here's a breakdown of their answers:
The Obvious Answer: Kevin Durant
- DVJS
- Horp
- Steph
- Hendo
- Myshawn
- Landry
- Matty P
- Chelsey
- Kyle
- JDub- With a secondary answer of Reggie Bullock from North Carolina
- Addy- Secondary answer: the legendary Mark Madsen
- CJ- Secondary answer ALSO Mark Madsen (is this a Minneapolis thing?) Also, discussing the Mad Dog led to this little factoid from CJ which is too good not to share: "He tried to meet up with two different female friends of mine on match.com, surprisingly both turned him down."
The Second Obvious Answer, That Somehow Never Even Crossed My Mind: Frank Thomas
- Easy E
- Dunph
- Bird
- Mangus
- Aly B
- Razor Ramon aka Tom- Secondary answers of Dontrielle Willis and Mike Tolbert- Hey, I'm not the only one to reference a fat San Diego Chargers running back!
- Jonye- Secondary answer of Reggie Lewis
- Gangel- Secondary answer Mike Richter (I love this one for some reason, maybe since it was the only hockey entry. What, no Toby Kvalevog? Sioux Yeah Yeahhhhhhhhhh!)
The Lane Answer
"Reggie Lewis, his fucking number is retired, and he's dead"
Clearly Associated With A Favorite Team, And That's OK Too
I thought there would be a bunch more of these, to be honest. At first I was surprised there were no Minnesota Twins, but after further research, it makes sense. I didn't recognize a single player on that list....but hey, Gardy sports the big 3-5! When he's not wearing sleeveless camo, drinking Old Milwaukee, and shooting animals from his back porch, that is.
- Double D, Schneweis- Jerod Haase (I love this one, obviously)
- Fundy- Reggie Bullock (I would've bet my entire checking account that Bullock would be Fundy's answer, so I would've doubled up...but then I would've given it all back when I let the same bet ride on JDub's answer.)
The Man-Card Revoking
Alfonso: "Nobody, but I'm terrible with sports numbers" (Editor's note: Rule #76, no excuses, play like a champion.)
In closing, I thought this was a strangely fascinating game. If I ever go to grad school, this topic might be my thesis. While the question served a purpose this time (if you count a shitty blog post as a "purpose"), next time I do this it will be for no reason at all. My friends should expect a similar question in the future every time I'm bored. My new drunk texts will be stuff like "heydude,,, #4fourty-7, GO! but firsst lets get an apartment 2gether.. what does it all mean? BeeR."
Hey, maybe a question like this would be a good icebreaker. Let's open up the lines of communication with Amanda after all these years.
