Best Green Bay Packers player to wear No. 40 is the only football and baseball HOF'er

Welcome back to Lombardi Ave's series covering the greatest Green Bay Packers players to wear every jersey number from No. 0 to No. 99.

With the single digits, teens, 20s, and 30s now in the bag, it's time to get going with the next group, and we've certainly got a special entry to kick things off here at No. 40. Sadly, our selection comes at the expense of several strong candidates, but we've gotta do what we've gotta do.

But before we get rolling, let's first have a look at everyone who's worn No. 40 for the Packers over the years.

Bennie Aldridge, B
Omar Brown, S
Tom Brown, DB
Tiny Cahoon, OT
LJ Davis, CB
Roger Eason, G
Carl Elliott, E
Tony Fisher, RB
Aldo Forte, G
Tipa Galeai, LB
Josh Gordy, CB
Earl Gros, RB
Dale Hackbart, DB
Willard Harrell, RB
Chris Hayes, S
Cal Hubbard, OL/DE
Eddie Lee Ivery, RB
Johnnie Jackson, S
Joe Johnson, DE
Joe Kerridge, FB
David King, DB
Dave Kopay, RB
Bill Lee, OT
Brandon Miree, RB
Jason Moore, S
Joe Porter, CB
Bernie Scherer, E
Ade Schwammel, OT
Pat Terrell, S
Pete Van Valkenberg, RB

If this were an Olympic medal stand, the bronze would go to running back Eddie Lee Ivery, who was a good player on some bad Packers teams in the 1980s and could have easily been a Pro Bowler had he been able to stay healthy.

In the silver spot would be safety Tom Brown, who picked off 13 passes in five years with the Packers from 1964 to 1968 and started for Vince Lombardi on three NFL Championship-winning teams, the last two of which also went on to win the first two editions of what we now call the Super Bowl. And that was all after he played a season of big-league baseball with the Washington Senators.

But the gold medal goes to Cal Hubbard, who we've mentioned in several other previous entries and will again a little down the road. And like Brown, he's got an MLB connection as well, just not as a player.

Packers legend Cal Hubbard made the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a player and the Baseball Hall of Fame as an umpire

The reason Hubbard hasn't yet been the featured player in an entry in this series is that, like so many others in the early days of the NFL, he wore several numbers, donning five different digits during his six-year run with the Packers from 1929 to 1935. In addition to No. 40, he also wore Nos. 39, 38, 27, and 51.

But as we've finally arrived at the number he wore the most, he finally gets the nod as a featured player, and we undoubtedly had to include him somewhere, given his accomplishments.

After spending the first two years of his career with the New York Giants, winning a title as a rookie in 1927, Hubbard demanded a trade to Green Bay ahead of the 1929 season, as he wanted to move to a small town and actually threatened to retire if his request wasn't met, which it obviously was.

While he played end on offense and what we now call a linebacker on defense with the Giants, Curly Lambeau moved him to the line on both sides of the ball upon his arrival in Green Bay, and he absolutely thrived in helping the Packers win back-to-back-to-back titles from 1929 to 1931.

While the Missouri native was one of the biggest players in the league at 6-foot-2 and 250-plus pounds, he was also one of the most athletic and could blitz as well as anyone on defense. But as strong as he was on defense, he's best known for his abilities on the offensive line, and many believe he was the best tackle of the pre-Super Bowl era.

After earning All-Pro honors for four straight seasons from 1930 to 1933, Hubbard left the NFL in 1934 to take an assistant coaching position at Texas A&M but returned to Green Bay in 1935, doubling as a player and the team's offensive line coach. He returned to the Giants in 1936, appearing in five games for New York before playing one final game that same season with the Pittsburgh Pirates, who later became the Steelers.

Speaking of doubling up, in 1928, just before his move to Green Bay, Hubbard began umpiring minor league baseball games during the NFL offseason, and the year he played his final game, he got called up to Major League Baseball and ultimately ended up officiating the World Series in 1938, 1942, 1946, and 1949, also working the All-Star Game in 1939, 1944, and 1949.

Furthermore, not thrilled with the way the system worked, Hubbard simply devised a new one in which each umpire was given specific duties, and he also recommended adding an extra official to each crew. MLB started using this system in 1952. Sadly, his career on the field was cut short a year earlier in 1951 when he was struck in the right eye by fragments of a shotgun shell during a hunting trip. Nevertheless, he continued to serve the game as a supervisor for umpiring crews in the American League for nearly two decades, finally retiring in 1969.

Hubbard was included as part of the first class of players ever to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1963, and he was also included in the first class of the Packers Hall of Fame in 1970. And for his contributions to MLB, he was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1976. To this day, he's the only person to be enshrined in both Canton and Cooperstown.

All of that kinda makes this title of the greatest Green Bay Packers player to wear No. 40 feel a little small, but it's one Hubbard certainly deserves.

Other Green Bay Packers jersey honorees

This list will be updated daily until all 100 entries are complete, so be sure to check back in with Lombardi Ave for updates.

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Packers legend Cal Hubbard made the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a player and the Baseball Hall of Fame as an umpire

Other Green Bay Packers jersey honorees

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