Now just 16 days until Opening Day delivers us Jersey #16 in the countdown
An early adopter was Sonny Jackson, who we saw a couple of days ago as one of the first Astros alongside Joe Morgan to ever make the cover of Sports Illustrated. Sonny debuted shortly after his 18th birthday in 1963 for the Colt .45s, hit .348 in a cup of coffee the next year and had a gorgeous 1966 season at age 21, hitting .292, stealing 49 bases, scoring 80 runs and getting 174 hits. It should be noted that 160 of those hits were singles. Yep, he had 14 extra-base hits (6 doubles, 5 triples, 3 homers) and that's it. Played with Houston from 1963-1967. By the way, all three of those homers were inside-the-park jobs, the most in a season by an Astro.
Jerry Davanon wore #16 in 1975 and 1976, and I'm only mentioning him because I went to high school with his son, Jeff, who later made it to the majors at age 25, and played 8 years in the league, hitting for the cycle for the Angels in 2004.
Dave Bergman and Harry Spillman carried the number forward from 1978 to 1985, and in the late 1980s it became the property of Mr. Rafael Ramirez, the "answer' at shortstop after Dickie Thon moved on and Craig Reynolds retired. Rafy was a diamond in the rough in his first year in Houston, hitting .276 with 30 doubles. The rest of his time in Houston, through to his retirement in 1992, was pretty meh. He was my Dad's favorite player, however, and I'll take the aside to shout out my dad here. My dad started smoking at age 15 and was up to 2 packs a day when I was a kid. At some point they made it illegal to smoke in the Dome, so my dad would anguish through Astro games jonsing for the nicotine. One game we were at, Ramirez came up and walked it off with a game-winning hit in the 13th inning, allowing my dad to GTFO for the cig. He started calling Ramirez "the Babe" after that and was hilariously stunned when he didn't continue to deliver clutch hits.
At age 51, my dad went to the doctor who showed him his lung Xrays and said, do you have grand kids? My dad said "not yet" and the doc said "If you don't quit smoking, you won't live to see them." My dad quit smoking that month; no patch, no gum, nothing, and has lived to see his first grandkid go to college, and my girls about to hit middle school.
A lot of odd names on the #16 chart post-Ramirez, including Dwight Gooden, Orlando Merced, and finally Jason Lane from 2005-2007, who caught fire like nobody's business in the Astros World Series run of 2005 ith 26 HR and 78 RBI in 517 at-bats. He also hit .600 in the 200 NLDS vs the Braves with a home run, and he is rather fascinatingly featured in the Richard Linklater film "Boyhood" which was filmed largely in the H over 12 years.
Brian McCann wore #16 in 2017-2018, a huge mental boost to the Astros' first WS winning team. He hit 18 HR and drove in 62 runs in 2017 before really tailing off the next year.
And utility genius Aledmys Diaz wore the # from 2019-2022, winning a World Series last year and then deciding to take a two-year vacation by signing with the A's. he as a great Swiss Army knife last year - 28 games in LF, 22 at 2B, 18 at SS, 10 at 3B, 7 at DH, 6 at 1B and 1 in RF. Nothing but the best, AD!
Life is better with a beagle