So it’s a bit of a double tragedy out there tonight. Travis d’Arnaud surrendering his favorite uni number — one he earned while Jose Reyes was drawing gigantic checks from a franchise that traded d’Arnaud away — and the Mets bending over backwards to accommodate a disgraced star when there’s no guarantee he’s anything approaching the No. 7 he once was.
Travis for his part robotically blurted out unconvincing platitudes about Reyes and Peyton Manning, and here is is, wearing his third uni number in as many years. They couldn’t even do the right thing and use this unusual situation to re-introduce No. 8 to the uni-sphere.
d’Arnaud by my count is the 28th guy to wear three or more numbers for the Mets:
| Player | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th |
| Jeff McKnight | 15 | 5 | 7 | 17 | 18 |
| Kevin Collins | 10 | 19 | 16 | 1 | |
| Pedro Feliciano | 55 | 39 | 25 | 55 | |
| Ed Lynch | 59 | 35 | 34 | 36 | |
| Darrell Sutherland | 47 | 43 | 45 | ||
| Cleon Jones | 34 | 12 | 21 | ||
| John Stephenson | 49 | 19 | 12 | ||
| Jim Hickman | 9 | 27 | 6 | ||
| Mike Jorgensen | 10 | 16 | 22 | ||
| Hank Webb | 42 | 30 | 29 | ||
| Hubie Brooks | 62 | 39 | 7 | ||
| Clint Hurdle | 33 | 13 | 7 | ||
| Chuck Carr | 7 | 1 | 27 | ||
| Kevin Elster | 2 | 21 | 15 | ||
| Charlie O’Brien | 33 | 5 | 22 | ||
| Ron Darling | 44 | 12 | 15 | ||
| Jason Phillips | 26 | 7 | 23 | ||
| David Cone | 44 | 17 | 16 | ||
| Jae Seo | 38 | 40 | 26 | ||
| Roger Craig | 38 | 36 | 13 | ||
| Lee Mazzilli | 12 | 16 | 13 | ||
| Mike DiFelice | 33 | 6 | 9 | ||
| Marlon Anderson | 18 | 23 | 9 | ||
| Ramon Martinez | 22 | 26 | 6 | ||
| Robinson Cancel | 4 | 40 | 29 | ||
| Anderson Hernandez | 1 | 4 | 11 | ||
| Omar Quintanilla | 6 | 3 | 0 | ||
| Travis d’Arnaud | 15 | 7 | 18 |
[…] behavior. So does Alderson. Jose’s back but he’s not back. He’s wearing No. 7, except even that isn’t simple. He had to get it back from a catcher with an odd-looking last name that begins with a lower-case […]