Irish rugby legend Willie John McBride may be best-remembered for his policy of “one in, all in” while captaining the British and Irish Lions tour of South Africa in 1974. That policy came into effect when, given sufficient provocation from overly physical play by the Springboks, McBride or a teammate would call out a two-digit number, whereupon all Lions on the pitch would hit the nearest opponent, leaving the lone referee on the pitch unable to identify a single instigator and thus left with the choice of sending off the entire team or no one at all. What was that infamous numerical signal, perhaps originally intended as a shortened version of the emergency phone number in the United Kingdom and Ireland, but better associated in the minds of North American sports fans with the likes of Wayne Gretzky and Mitch Williams?
99