Mariano Rivera was the last, in 2013.
Ahh, good. A Charity day for a good cause and a great player. I’m sure a quick google said it was related to Jackie Robinson.
And a few day games coming up for the Mets (I’m EDT + 5), the first two getaway games for travel and the one on the 12th perhaps for the Nationals traveling. And all of them promotional days. Never got a bobble-head yet did get a nice Mets umbrella, a t-shirt and a green Mets cap for the first ever Irish night. May have been before they cut off beer sales or we bought enough to see them wheel Black 47 out to short-center.
ETA: Googling says it was 2014 at Citi Field. I know it was years earlier at Shea and am almost positive it was Black 47. Not the Pogues and certainly not U2.
1995 according to the Black 47 page (where they say they’ve played Shea more times than the Beatles who never had the Mets open for them), was the first time they played there and to the best of my knowledge was the first Irish Night. I think they continued into Citi yet may have stopped it.
Then there was “Disco Demolition Night” in 1979 at Comiskey. They blew up some albums, the fans rushed the field and set them on fire.
I’m trying to think of a 5 cent beer night so I’m thinking the Brewers? Maybe Comiskey again. It went off about as well.
ETA: 10 cent beer night in Cleveland against the Rangers. They’d done it before NP but this time the fans (and players?) had some grudge against the Rangers.
Nope, every team retired #42 and so it’s not used. Except on Jackie Robinson day, April 15th, when every player wears that number.
Nice. I remember the first and glad they’ve continued it. And the Lou Gehrig day is every year too.
ETA: Out of curiosity I checked if the yankees had retired all the single-digit numbers. Jeter (#2) was the last, and I guess deserves it. For the Mets only David Wright (#5). Not that there’s any particular distinction to it, yet the single digit numbers are not too commonly handed out.
Just out of curiosity (again) I ranked the top single-digit players by career BA and HR’s.
Rank Player (#) Team Career BA Career HR
1 Luis Arraez (7) Marlins/Padres .324 24
2 Freddie Freeman (4) Dodgers .301 335
3 Bryce Harper (5) Phillies .283 324
4 Manny Machado (3) Padres .279 327
5 Trea Turner (1) Phillies .277 166
6 Corey Seager (5) Rangers .276 175
7 Francisco Lindor (1) Mets .270 224
I stopped at Lindor just to include a Met. Dunno if players put it in their contract, become good and request it or what. I know with the Yankees - who may have been one of the first teams to have numbers, Ruth is #3 and Gehrig #4 because they batted in that order (and similarly for other at least yankee players).
I’d say only 1-4 (Rank) would be possible first balloteers for the HOF as of now though there’s not necessarily a guarantee a team will retire your number should you not be elected. Should a player be elected, generally they can choose their bronzed helmet to be any team they’ve been on for a good period of time. I don’t know why Arraez has two teams, yet I know Freeman better as a Brave and dunno how long his career has been or will be. Yet you cannot ignore >.300 BA and >300 homers.
As for teams retiring numbers, that’s up to them and one player uniform number could be retired by more than one team. I’m not sure if Mike Piazza’s #31 was also retired by the Dodgers (6 years) though he chose to enter the HOF as a Met (7 years) so that could in theory have gone either way.
And of course there are current players with better career stats than these. It just means being good doesn’t necessarily mean you can ask for some uniform number. Plus there’s likely all kinds of getting used to a number and supersitions about changing your number (unless, say Freeman is traded to the Yankees he is absolutely SOL on his uniform number).
Having a certain uniform number?
I suppose it’s possible that a player puts it his contract, but my understanding is that, generally, when a player joins a team (or makes a team out of spring training), they’re typically asked what uniform number they want, and are usually given it, assuming that it (a) is not retired, and (b) isn’t currently worn by someone else (though some teams may apparently just assign numbers, particularly to rookies). If a new player really wants a number that someone else already wears, I’ve heard of cases where the current number holder is offered something by the new player in order to give up the number.
I’m not sure where you’re getting this assumption, but I don’t think it’s correct.
Also, regarding the Yankees, and retired numbers: that team is kind of bonkers about retiring numbers. Some of their retired numbers are for players who were fine Yankees, and fan favorites, but really only are ever going to be in the Hall of Very Good (e.g., Don Mattingly, Paul O’Neill, Elston Howard, Ron Guidry, Bernie Williams).
Mattingly and Guidry were team captains and on the coaching staff after their playing days, but they have gone overboard for a long time. Roger Maris? Reggie Jackson?
I’d like to see all the numbers put back in play. These guys have plaques and even freaking monuments in the stadium. That should be enough. And if players want to honor Jackie Robinson or they just like the number, that should be put back into use too. If you absolutely feel the need to retire a great player’s number, make it a five or ten year honorary retirement.
The Nationals did that with the numbers the Expos had retired. If the Yankees are inclined to move, they are more than welcome. Yet seriously, I don’t think most Yankee fans would agree with you. Is Roger Maris’s number not retired? Okay then, stop retiring numbers before the shortstop is #122. Donnie Baseball is not somehow honored?
I disagree on #42. Even though not a Yankee fan at all I wouldn’t want to be a Yankee wearing #3 or #4.
Apparently, there is no specific MLB rule that disallows triple-digit numbers.
How about allowing teams to not have numbers?
The backs of uniforms can be valuable advertisement space. Keep the player’s names, yet think about it: Does an umpire ever refer to a player by either number or name? “You’re out!”, “After review, the runner from first is out.”, “The second baseman did not touch the base before throwing to first so the runner at 2nd is safe”.
In the other sports, where players are moving around, the officials need to know the numbers. And again, they never use the player’s names
Who sponsored the Bad News Bears? Chico’s Bail Bonds of course. And through little league teams routinely had sponsorship prominently displayed, usually on their backs.
Allow it to be optional for rich teams like the Yankees if they don’t want a piece of AT&T mobile, Coke or Pepsi and whatever else fits. Maybe once a year we can be reminded of archaic numbers in baseball on “Jackie Robinson Day” Pay tribute to the names of the players perhaps on the outfield walls or plaques somewhere in rotundas.
If I searched for all the players with #14 right now, it would be a mix of great players, rookies, journeymen or not even in use. Yet if I want to know which beverage is “the real thing” or whether to buy a ford, chevy, toyota - one that is supporting my team - I need look no further than the back of their uniform. And of course if I shell out $100 for my favorite players jersey, it too will come replete with all the ads.
What is this table supposed to show? What does (#) mean? How is it ranked?
The Yankees were the first baseball team to introduce player uniform numbers in 1929, at least according to batting order. They were:
- Earle Combs (CF) – #1 (leadoff hitter)
- Mark Koenig (SS) – #2
- Babe Ruth (RF) – #3
- Lou Gehrig (1B) – #4
- Bob Meusel (LF) – #5
- Tony Lazzeri (2B) – #6
- Leo Durocher (SS/3B) – #7
- Johnny Grabowski (C) – #8
- Bill Dickey (C) – #9
For the Yankees, #1 was retired for Billy Martin, #2 for Jeter and #3 and #4 are obvious and I don’t know all the others, yet all 9 are “retired”
So the pound sign # is what I meant when referring to some players, like Ruth and Gehrig.
The table I made was just to see if at least current players with single digit uniform numbers were particularly good. I did write that it was ranked by batting average and homers - what I’d consider the main offensive stats. None of them (in my table), were they traded to the Yankees today, would keep their uniform number (I will assume).
I just looked up Ted Williams (Number 9) stats and his career BA was only .344 and he only hit 321 homers. On-Base Percentage (OBP): .482 (highest all-time) and last to his over .400 in 1941.
The chance of any Red Sox player wearing 9 on his back are lower than 3 & 4 for the Yankees.
Well for one, Lindor wears 12. And how is Arraez ranked 1?
The team pages on Baseball Reference list all of a team’s retired numbers, and for whom. The retired 1-9 for the Yankees:
1 - Billy Martin
2 - Derek Jeter
3 - Babe Ruth
4 - Lou Gehrig
5 - Joe DiMaggio
6 - Joe Torre (never actually played for the Yankees, but won four World Series as their manager)
7 - Mickey Mantle
8 - Yogi Berra and Bill Dickey
9 - Roger Maris
Interestingly, of their retired numbers, five are for catchers (Berra, Dickey, Thurman Munson, Jorge Posada, and Elston Howard).
Bad/outdated output from google.
Ranked by career batting average, then home runs for a current player with a single digit uniform number. Also susceptible to bad output.
And Freddie Freeman is #5 right now for the Dodgers. Dunno what he was for the Braves.
Duke Snider was #4 and number retired already for the Dodgers.
ETA: My “thesis” proved nothing. The best single digit uniform players have perhaps 4 HOF candidates, yet so would 10-19, 20-29, etc…
Again, easy to answer via Baseball Reference; every player’s page lists their uniform numbers, by year, via numbered icons (color-coded for their teams’ uniform colors) in the upper right corner of the page. Freeman wore #5 with the Braves.
And that site likely has a better query system for stats than trying to use google. His wiki mentioned nothing about changing number when he went to LA yet I reckon Baseball Reference would be better at answering “who changed uniform numbers when moving to another club because the number was retired already”
Also, as I wrote above, in Baseball uniform numbers are almost entirely irrelevant
ETA: and should instead be replaced by ads for Chevy Trucks and Coca Cola.
Definitely. If you want to do research on a player or team for a baseball-related post, Baseball Reference is pretty exhaustive, and also fairly easy to navigate.
As far as being predictive of stats/performance? Absolutely. If anything, I might suspect a slight bias against single-digit uniform numbers, as far as classifying the best modern-day players, for two reasons:
- As the low digit uniforms were the norm for many years (once teams started using uniform numbers), for those teams which have retired numbers, there’s likely a skew towards low numbers being unavailable for any given team, especially those from the pre-expansion era.
- In the past few decades, we’ve seen some players selecting higher uniform numbers (i.e., over the low 50s); decades ago, those were numbers that one never saw except in spring training games.
Man, they are good. I only checked two:
Reggie Jackson went from #9 to #44 when traded to the Yankees as that was Roger Maris
Alex Rodriguez went from #3 to #13 when traded to the Yankees as that was the Babe
ETA: #44 is retired