TR's Origin Story

A lot of people asked me "Where did TR go?"  I'm finally at liberty to spill the beans.

All superheroes and supervillians have an origin story.  Radioactive spiders, cosmic radiation, gamma radiation ... why so much radiation at Marvel ... aliens from destroyed planets, newly evolved species, you name it.  Here is TR's.

The guy you know as TR isn't really named TR.  Like if you look at his birth certificate it doesn't say "TR."  As opposed to TJ's birth certificate, which say "TJ."  In fact, TR doesn't have a birth certificate.  He was born around 2000 years ago and has roamed the earth ever since.  Essentially immune to the aging process, he appears throughout the artistic record of history.

One of the earliest images of TR is dated around 170 AD, according to Dr. Darryl Butt from the University of Utah.  Dr. Butt analyzed paint from TR's portrait and was "able to determine the purple pigment was synthetic in nature, and not naturally from the glands of the Murex sea snails as most purple dyes were at the time."  Here is the portrait:

Those of you who knew TR circa 1992 will recognize that head of hair immediately and recall his high school nickname "Pubies."

Many years later, he got into a spot of trouble and needed to get out of town quickly, so he took a job on a boat.  Turns out he loved to sail and he did that for many years.  Thanks to his travels, pasta came to Italy.

TR eventually capitalized on his passion for sailing and bedlam and became a pirate.  This portrait nicely captures "The Look" he gets when particularly motivated for mayhem.

He eventually grew tired of the whole piracy thing and became a landlubber.  He somehow stumbled into the oil business and became quite prosperous.  However, one business transaction ended ... poorly ... and once again he had to pick up and move.

Eventually TR merged his interests in seamanship and energy--he became the captain of an oil tanker.  It didn't go as well as he hoped.

Then he went to William & Mary, where he met many of us.  He graduated and moved to New York City where he hung out with a much cooler crowd.  Here is Chuck Close's portrait of him from this period:

He got back into the energy business, but this time from a desk so he didn't have to bludgeon anyone.  That bored him, so now he's out west running a festival clothing company and a food truck.

So the next time you see a scowling bearded man take a close look.  It could be TR, continuing his journey across the world.

Silver Linings Playbook

There are a lot of reasons why crossing another number off of life's tally sheet might be considered a negative. I'm noticeably more gray at the temples now than I was at this time last year, for example. The hangovers hurt more than they used to. My God, do they. And let's not kid ourself - every additional numeral represents that much additional sand that's fallen through the aperture into the wrong half of the hourglass.

But in my case, at least this year, there's one substantial advantage to tacking on one more number.

As I assume most of you do, I associate each year of my life with the uniform number worn by an athlete, famous or just important to me. 33 was awesome, because Larry Bird. (I had a daughter that year, too, which was pretty cool, too, I guess.) I'm really looking forward to 77, for obvious reasons.

But 44 is so much better than 43. Dennis Eckersley's not bad, and he played for the Red Sox. And Richard Petty is The King. Brad Daugherty wore the digits in his honor. My man Darren Sproles carried 43, too. The pickings are slim for that prime number, though.

44, on the other hand, represents royalty. Hank Aaron, Reggie Jackson, Jim Brown, and George Gervin wore double fours. So did Willie McCovey, Chris Pronger, and Dan Issel. Mr. NBA himself, Jerry Brown, wore 44. Pistol Pete, too. Nolan Ryan threw a no-hitter when he was 44.

Intermission: Here's an awesome video of Gervin and Maravich playing a televised game of H-O-R-S-E. Ignore Pete's number 7 - he wished he were wearing his favorite digits:



Closer to home for me, Orlando Cabrera donned 44 when the Red Sox broke the curse in 2004. It was Danny Ainge's number when I was a huge Celtics fan as a kid - he won a pair of championships in that jersey. POTUS 44, too, suits me just fine.

There's a guy, though, that ends this discussion, even given the greats that have worn number 44. Clarence, I'm quite certain, grasped this punch line about five paragraphs ago, Sandy baby.

44 is the baddest ass of all years, because of this guy:

May my 44th year be filled with a fraction of the spirit, camaraderie, and joie de vivre that characterizes Riggo's time on Earth. And in those too-often moments when you catch me worrying about shit that's far too petty, may you call me on it, Riggo-style.