You have to love Spring Training photos. Where else could you see Craig Worthington, who wore #3 and #25 in four seasons in Baltimore, wearing a wacky number like #63? That's the kind of number that belongs to an offensive lineman, not a third baseman. For the purposes of my website research, rogue uniform numbers are murder. Suddenly you see Billy Ripken wearing #56 and you start second-guessing yourself. But it's always fun to see something obscure and silly-looking on a baseball card.Speaking of weird things on an O's card, I see a grass-stained #27 lurking on deck in the above picture. I'm guessing that this is a Spring Training 1988 photo, which raises the possibility that the mystery man is Lee Lacy. He didn't play for the Birds that year, and his three-year contract with the team expired at the end of 1987, but he could have gotten an invite to extend his career at age forty. Of course, if he couldn't make that lousy 1988 team, he really would have gotten the message that it was time to hang it up. (FYI: Caucasian pitcher John Habyan wore #27 in the 1988 regular season, so I know that isn't him.)
I can at least guess about the identity of the fuzzy #27. As to the umpire's attendant-ish guy with the orange shirt and too-short black shorts directly behind Craig, I'm not sure I want to know.
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