Tony Canadeo

Never heard of him, but it appears that I should have. Tony Canadeo was a Green Bay Packer from 1941-1944 and 1946-1952. He skipped a year to be in WW2 (which begs the question: If they had girl baseball while all the boys were at war, then why didn't they have girl football?)

Obviously, I don't expect myself to know about old timey football players ('cept John Krasinski and George Clooney, of course), but as an indigenous cheesehead, I should probably be familiar with important Packers. Sorry, Wisconsin. I've let you down.

You see, Mr. Canadeo was one of the only numbers to be retired by the Pack. Number 3 will never be worn again...and I'm guessing Number 4 might soon follow since Wisconsinites basically consider Brett Favre more important than Jesus, the President and whoever invented cheese curds. I imagine the felt they same way about ol' Numbah Trey back in the fabulous forties (cue old timey radio voice where I talk about Chesterfield cigarettes and Shirley Temple's new MGM picture).

In fact, Brett & Tony do have one other important attribute in common: they both suffer from premature greying. Tony was actually better-known by his nickname "The Grey Ghost," due to this ailment. And we all know Brett's gotten a bit more than salt & pepper happening. Sadly for the Grey Ghost, though, he wasn't exactly what we'd call a "silver fox."

In other words, he wasn't totally hot despite his unfortunate hair situation. Y'know, like Brett. And Anderson Cooper. And Richard Gere. And Dr. McSteamy. and Stacy London? Meh, maybe not.

At least I can prove to Wisconsin that I know more Packers than I do silver foxes. I was totally into them when they were good in 1997. See? Reggie White, LeRoy Butler, Robert Brooks, Antonio Freeman. Okay, that's all I've got. But a girl on my dorm floor went to that prom party where Mark Chmura totally skeezed out and pulled some statutory-type business. So I've got that going for me. Which is nice.