Wednesday, April 29, 2020

Rapids History By The Numbers: #1



As expected, #1 is the realm of the goalkeepers.  Here's the full list of who's worn #1 over the years:

Chris Woods (1996)
Marcus Hahnemann (1997-1999)
David Kramer (2000-2002)
Scott Garlick (2003)
Joe Cannon (2004-2006)
Bouna Coundoul (2007-2008)
Clint Irwin (2014-2015, 2020)
Tim Howard (2016-2019)

First, its easy to forget that Pickens never wore #1, and apparently none of his backups did either, so there's a gap for 5 years.  Secondly, there's a few of these that are clearly not in the running.  Woods, Kramer, Garlick, and Bouna (I love you Bouna!) aren't in the same category as Hahnemman, Cannon, Irwin, and Howard.  So its really a four way race.

Some of the notable accomplishments for the four of them:

Hahnemann - Second all-time in Team Wins (behind Pickens)

Cannon - 2004 MLS Best XI, 2005 & 2006 All-Star, 2004 MVP Finalist, 2004 MLS GK of the Year, 2005 & 2006 MLS GK of the Year Finalist, Rapids All-Time Leader - Saves

Irwin - 2015 All-Star, Second all-time in Team Minutes and Shutouts (behind Pickens in both)

Howard - 2017 MLS All-Star, 2016 MLS GK of the Year Finalist, 2019 MLS Humanitarian of the Year Finalist

I think that alone shows that Cannon and Howard are on a different level in their Rapids careers than Hahnemman was.  Marcus was probably the first real name to leave the Rapids and go on to success overseas but even then it took a couple of years for him to find his home at Reading.  Irwin appears high in a number of team categories but most of them are counting stats due to his longevity.  Cannon is not far behind him with notably less games played.  In the end though this comes down to Joe vs. Tim.

When you look at the Rapids record book Howard leads Cannon in appearances, starts, and minutes, but Cannon leads Howard in Wins, Losses, Saves, Shutouts, and Goals Against Average.  All but the latter are counting stats, not averages, which means he did more in less time.  That. combined with the list of accomplishments, makes this an easy call for me .  Joe Cannon is the best Rapid to ever wear the #1 jersey.

Rapids History By The Numbers: Overview

Ok, I've been finally inspired to write about something Rapids related even with the pandemic shutting down the league.  This is the first in a series discussing which is the best Rapid to wear each number all-time.

The goal of this series is to focus on their play as a member of the team.  If the focus was just the best player overall then clearly Tim Howard would be the best player to ever wear #1 and El Pibe would be the best #10.  Were they the best player to wear their numbers when playing for the burgundy boys though?  A lot of the criteria is subjective, obviously.  While I won't be looking at their careers outside the team any National Team appearances while wearing the green/blue/burgundy will have an influence, since National Team callups are based on their club play.

Now there have been 47 numbers used over Rapids history.  I've had to piece the number history together from John Persing's original archive, Wikipedia, game reports, Rapids statistics, random game photos found online, and some help from Richard Fleming.  So don't be shocked if the data isn't 100% correct.  Also, I'm not writing 47 different columns.  Some of the numbers were used by one or two players total, so I can combine those into one column.  Others are very obvious as to who the best player was (Balboa/17, Mastroeni/25) so we won't need to spend a lot of space on them.  I'm hoping to keep this to about 30 total, and to get through them in a month or two.

#1 will be posted later tonight, and I'm hoping to get at least #2 and #3 out this week.