As a “writer” for the Phillies, I have a habit of saving an inordinate amount of player photos on my laptop. A majority never get used, so every once in a while I like to sort through the various folders and clean them out. The other day while deleting some pics from Spring Training, I noticed a shot of what seemed to be a scar on Ryan Howard’s left arm. But upon closer inspection, that “scar” looked more like he had been branded. Being that I have zero Photoshop skills, I forwarded it to someone who does and asked him if he could zoom in on it.

Check out what I got back:

Yup, looks like a brand to me. How did this go unnoticed? What’s the significance?

After the jump, I’ll do my best to figure it out…

Back in the day, when he was a teenager, before he had status and before he had a pager Ryan Howard wasn’t a highly recruited baseball player like most future MVP’s. He was a kid from St. Louis on his way to Southwest Missouri State (which has since been shortened to plain ol’ Missouri State) who just happened to play baseball. Like a majority of college students, Ryan decided to join a fraternity. He chose to pledge with the Rho Chi Chapter of the prestigious Phi Beta Sigma (ΦΒΣ), a predominately black organization with such famous alumni as George Washington Carver, Jerry Rice, Emmitt Smith & former Iggle “Arkansas” Fred Barnett.

Since it is somewhat commonplace for members of a black fraternity — especially a private chapter — to show their devotion by getting a brand, I’m gonna assume it has something to do with Phi Beta Sigma. I did about as much research as I possibly could to figure out exactly what the brand says, but I was unable to decipher it. I did, however, stumble upon this site that lists the various pledge classes for the Missouri State Rho Chi Brothers. If you scroll down to the section labeled, “Fall 2000 S.S. Disorderlies“ you’ll see the last two members listed are Ryan Howard and his twin brother, Corey. I know that doesn’t really explain much, but at least it’s something.

Now, how is it that the NL MVP has a brand covering his entire left upper-arm and it has (until now) gone undiscovered? You got me. All I know is since I came across this picture, I went back and studied every picture of Ryan Howard that I could find and not one of them show what’s underneath his left sleeve. As a matter of fact, the only other pic I saw that partially showed it was a Spring Training photo from last year. It seems the DriFit-type material of the Spring Training unis tend to move more freely allowing the possibility of a full-brand shot. Here is the other photo that shows the bottom of it and a rotated close-up of the original:

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