my retired number collection - here's 2 them

this is the fourth post in a series that shares the cards i have in my retired number mini-collection. you can find the links to the previous posts down at the bottom of this post. if you're eager to learn more right now, you can check out the full list of retired numbers along with what this collection will entail over at my want list site.

without further ado, here are the five people for whom the number 2 has been retired:

2 nellie fox (retired by the white sox in 1976) - 1962 topps

the white sox retired fox's number, visible on his sleeve on his 1962 topps card, on may 1, 1976 - just a few months after he passed away at the age of 47. after missing the writer's ballot by two votes in his final year of eligibility, he was eventually elected to the hall of fame by the veteran's committee in 1997.

fox spent 14 seasons with the white sox sandwiched between time with the philadelphia a's and houston colt .45's/astros. he was the 1959 american league mvp, leading the chisox to the world series that year against the dodgers. he is considered to be one of the better defensive second basemen in the history of the game but also finished his career with 2,663 hits (most of which were singles by far). in 1975, chet lemon became the last white sox player to wear number 2, which had been in constant use since fox's departure.

2 charlie gehringer (retired by the tigers in 1983) - 1999 upper deck century legends

no number visible on this card of gehringer, but he did wear number 2 for the tigers for the last 11 years of his 19 year career, a career spent entirely with detroit. he was the 1937 american league mvp, hitting .371 that year to lead the league. he hit .375 in the 1935 world series to help lead the tigers to their first championship in franchise history, and the following season he hit 60 doubles. you probably heard his name if you were following the dodgers the last week of the season as freddie freeman was trying to became the first player since gehringer (and joe medwick) to hit 60 doubles in a season.

he had a great nickame - the mechanical man - and finished with over 2,800 hits and a .320 batting average for his career. he joined the hall of fame in 1949 and the tigers retired his number on june 12, 1983. not sure what took them so long once they started retiring numbers in the mid-1970s. 19 different players wore number 2 for the tigers following gehringer's retirement, with the last being richie hebner in 1982.

2 red schoendienst (retired by the cardinals in 1996) - 1969 topps

when i was a kid, it was gaylord perry's cards that made me think the guy was ancient. looking at schoendienst's 1969 topps card there has me doing a double take as i realize he was probably just 45 when the photo was taken and possibly even 43 as i think there is a good chance the photo was taken during the same shoot that included the image on his 1967 topps card. i am also realizing that i assumed he was inducted in to the hall of fame as a manager, but no - he was elected by the veteran's committee as a player in 1989.

i didn't see any playing days cards of his (or modern cards showing him as a player) with the number 2 visible, although it is possible his 2001 topps tribute card is from his time as a player as the cardinals began wearing the number on the front of the card in 1962, scheondienst's penultimate season as a player. he finished his playing career with 2,449 hits and a .289 average.

schoendienst did go on the manage the cardinals over three different stints that included four decades. he was a fixture with the club even when not managing, and continued to wear the uniform even after the club retired it on may 11, 1996. the only time he wasn't wearing the number between his return to the club as a player in 1961 and his retirement from the game was in 1977 and 1978 when he was coaching for the a's. as a result, steve swisher became the last cardinal player to wear number 2, doing so during the 1978 season.

2 tommy lasorda (retired by the dodgers in 1997) - 1989 mother's cookies dodgers

this card was gifted to me by a card shop owner in costa mesa california back in the early 1990's. i was on the hunt for a box bottom card of lasorda from 1989 or 1990, and the guy gave me this instead. i was pretty stoked about it to be honest. since then i've bought the complete team set, but held on to this extra tommy, and now it gets to represent him and his retired number in my collection.

lasorda wore a couple of other numbers for the dodgers as a player in the 1950's and as a coach in the early 1970's, but settled on number 2 before beginning his first full season as the dodger skipper in 1977. ellie rodriguez was the last dodger player to wear number 2, doing so in lasorda's first four games as the dodger manager at the end of the 1976 season.

lasorda led the dodgers to the world series in each of his first two seasons, and then guided them to world championships in 1981 and 1988. he won 1,599 games as their manager, with his retirement being forced after suffering a heart attack in 1996. the team retired his number the following year on august 15, 1997 in recognition of his induction to the hall of fame a couple of weeks prior.

2 derek jeter (retired by the yankees in 2017) - 1998 upper deck

for the record, i am a fan of 1998 upper deck.

you know the yankees thought highly of jeter when they assigned him number 2, or at least i thought so, but it had been worn by mike gallego for the three years prior to jeter's arrival. still, it makes sense that he would be the last to wear it for the yankees given his status as an all-time great.

3,465 hits, a .315 career batting average, 1,923 runs scored and 1,311 rbi certainly amounts to a hall of fame career, and then you add five world series championships as well. i wasn't necessarily his biggest fan but i sure do respect the talent. jeter was voted in to the hall of fame on his first ballot in 2020 with 99.7% of the vote, but the yankees didn't wait for that honor as they retired his number on may 14, 2017.

i am going to track a few things as we go, even though the information is already available elsewhere.

retired numbers by team (shown in chronological order of their first number retirement):

yankees - 1, 2, 4

giants - 4

pirates - 1, 4

guardians 

red sox - 1, 4

phillies - 1

cardinals - 1, 2

reds - 1

braves

astros

mets

orioles - 4

dodgers - 1, 2, 4

twins

white sox - 2, 4

brewers - 1, 4

tigers - 1, 2

cubs

royals

padres

athletics

angels

expos

rangers

major league baseball

rays

diamondbacks

blue jays

rockies

mariners

retired number frequency:

1 - retired by 9 teams

2 - retired by 5 teams

4 - retired by 8 teams

unnumbered players - 12 players recognized by 4 teams

running total of unique hall of famers (including those without numbers): 30

running total of non-hall of famers: 4