Leafs jersey number conventions?

[Deebo]

Quite frankly, the fact that not retiring numbers for the great players who didn't get maimed or killed was a policy of the Ballard era Maple Leafs is in itself enough for me to think they should run as quickly away from it as they can.

No numbers were retired until 1992 and nothing was honoured until 1993, both after Ballard died.

Seems like it was a post Ballard policy.

 

[Kin]

Keon is an individual who excelled in a team sport that has a long history or other individuals who've excelled. You can't bend to the wishes of each of these individuals; it has to apply equally to all. In that case, they have to stick to their current policy for now.

Why? As mentioned before you can have separate honours for separate players. You could ask each player if they'd prefer if their number was retired or if they'd like to see it passed on(as, again, Bailey did with Ron Ellis). Even if it was a good policy there's no reason to blindly devote the team to it.

While I understand the history with Keon, and I understand the argument of whether the Leafs should change the policy (and I wouldn't really care if they did), the fact is he's been offered their highest honour. To me, that's why it feels as though he's being ungrateful.

I'm sorry, but that's just not true. It's not a fact. It's, at best, your opinion that "honouring" a number is the equal of retiring one and it's an opinion that stands in contradiction to the industry standard. In addition despite your particular arguments that the Maple Leafs only reserve what actually is their highest honour for players in the particularly unique situations of Bailey and Barilko, even that isn't true because they agreed to retire 99 as well. So this policy, that you think they need to slavishly hold fast to in the case of Dave Keon, they didn't for someone who never even played for the team.

And, let's get something straight here, Dave Keon hasn't "complained" about anything. He's got a fractured relationship with the team. He's been asked what could repair it. The Leafs have refused. That's it. He doesn't lobby for what he thinks they should do or campaign for it. He's perfectly content to not have anything to do with the Maple Leafs.

Do other players share his opinion? They might. Most are probably happy for any honour bestowed on them. But let's be real, saying as you do to understand Keon's history with the team, most of these other greats don't have Keon's relationship with the team. They don't have the history of bitterness and bad feelings. Keon's situation, heck, you could even call it unique.

 

[Kin]

No numbers were retired until 1992 and nothing was honoured until 1993, both after Ballard died.

Bailey's number was retired in 1934. Hence the whole Ron Ellis thing.

 

[Bullfrog]

Well, it's clear we disagree significantly on a number of things about this subject, so I'll just bow out now.

As a parting comment, I do find it a bit confusing as to how you can't separate the Bailey, Barilko, and Gretzky situations from the rest of the players.  I know you clearly see the difference, but my interpretation is because those situations were unique, they make it irrelevant to the discussion. Hence our disagreement as to whether he's been offered the Leafs highest honour or not. Absent being killed/maimed during his time with the Leafs or the greatest player of all time (in many's opinion), he's only currently entitled to be being honoured as other Leafs have been. So, currently, yes, he's been offered their highest available honour.

 

[Kin]

As a parting comment, I do find it a bit confusing as to how you can't separate the Bailey, Barilko, and Gretzky situations from the rest of the players.  I know you clearly see the difference, but my interpretation is because those situations were unique, they make it irrelevant to the discussion.

But that's where you're essentially ignoring what I'm saying. As you say, I understand the concept of unique situations. That leap from "These players have a unique situation" to "Their unique situations are the only ones that demand a particular honour and we're drawing the line entirely arbitrarily" is where it kind of breaks down.

I can separate all sorts of guys arbitrarily into "unique" situations. Keon, as mentioned. Salming, for what he brought to the game as a trailblazer for Swedish players. Sundin, for maybe being the single greatest player in franchise history. Each player is unique. Each player could be honoured for unique reasons. Just saying "These guys are unique, therefore they deserve X" is not really much in the way of a rationale for any policy.

Hence our disagreement as to whether he's been offered the Leafs highest honour or not. Absent being killed/maimed during his time with the Leafs or the greatest player of all time (in many's opinion), he's only currently entitled to be being honoured as other Leafs have been. So, currently, yes, he's been offered their highest available honour.

But regardless of what qualifiers you use the fact remains that a division is there. These arbitrary qualifiers, that only the Leafs seem to think are important, aren't handed down from on high. The Leafs could just as easily have a different policy and different standards. Saying "we reserve our highest honour for certain players in certain situations" isn't really any different from what any other team does. The difference is that other teams think that greatness in uniform is enough to qualify their players for it. The Leafs don't, sure, but I guess that trailblazing attitude is why they've been so uniquely successful.

Again, this is where we get back to the gold watch vs. the high five. It really doesn't matter what the Leafs consider to be a "good enough" honour for their players if it's not up to the standards of essentially everyone else.

 

[Deebo]

No numbers were retired until 1992 and nothing was honoured until 1993, both after Ballard died.

Bailey's number was retired in 1934. Hence the whole Ron Ellis thing.

Sorry, wikipedia had both numbers officially retired in 1992.

However, both number retirements occurred before Ballard joined the team in 1957, so the only retiring numbers of players who are killed/maimed policy predates him and all the honoured player occurred after he died.

It sounds like that Ballard era policy was do nothing and the honouring of the players policy started after he died. I have a hard time connecting this policy to the Ballard era.

 

[Bill_Berg]

It seems to me the Leafs have been consistent. They've retired two numbers because of injury/death, and Gretzky's number was retired by the league, there must have been pressure to not be the only one to not 'retire' 99.

 

[Kin]

It sounds like that Ballard era policy was do nothing and the honouring of the players policy started after he died. I have a hard time connecting this policy to the Ballard era.

Sure but that's all I said, that Ballard's policy was to not retire the number of great players.