Sports are all about numbers.

Wins. Losses. Touchdowns. Interceptions. Home runs. Strikeouts.

We pore over them and memorize them until they become ingrained in our brains and a part of our life.

I saw the movie "The Number 23" recently.

Only two things about the movie were really creepy:

• No. 1: Hearing Jim Carrey drop the F-bomb. There's just something disconcerting about hearingAce Ventura swear like a sailor.

• No. 2: The sheer amount of time I spent thinking about No. 23 after I saw the movie.

Of course, I couldn't just let it go. I had to start digging. I had to see if the No. 23 was as prevalent in sports as it is in daily life.

It is.

Let's start with the obvious:

• Michael Jordan, perhaps the greatest basketball player of all time, wore the number. LeBron James, thought of as the next Jordan, also wears No. 23.

• Two players, Mike Bratz and Tyrone Corbin, each wore No. 23 for both the Bulls and the Cavs before turning it over to Jordan and James.

• Ben Roethlisberger couldn't avoid the No. 23 curse: His birthday is March 2 (that's 3-2) and he threw 23 interceptions this season.

But it doesn't get really freaky until you look at Super Bowl XXIII (that's 23 for Roman numeral illiterates).

• The quarterbacks in that game between the 49ers and Bengals were Joe Montana and Boomer Esiason. Add up the letters in their names and you get 23.

• Montana was 32 on Super Bowl Sunday that year.

• Billy Joel sang the national anthem before that Super Bowl. He was born in 1949. One plus nine plus four plus nine equals 23.

Joel has 23 top 40 singles — and about as many drunken driving citations.

In baseball, the Pirates have not had much luck with the No. 23.

• Gene Lamont managed with the number and got fired.

• Lloyd McClendon took over for Lamont, wore No. 23 and got fired.

Even locally, the number has stood out lately.

Just Monday night, the number came up big for the Grove City High School basketball team.

• The playoff win over Warren Local was the 23rd victory of the season for the Eagles.

• JordanFee, son of Grove City coach Don Fee and the starting point guard, wears No. 23 and he surpassed 1,000 points in his career in the triumph.

In that case, 23 was good for Grove City. It hasn't been so good for other area athletes.

• Maria Baroffio wears No. 23 for Butler. She injured her knee in a scrimmage just days before the Golden Tornado opened the WPIAL playoffs against Latrobe. Butler lost.

• The A-CValley girls basketball team has gone 0-23 for the last two seasons.

Of course, this really only proves if you look hard enough, you can find a number in anything.