this is the 18th 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 people for whom numbers greater than 59 have been retired:
66: don zimmer (retired by the rays in 2015) 2010 dav mlb
zimmer was neither a player nor a manager for the rays, but was honored by the club by having his number 66 retired on april 6, 2015 - the first opening day following his passing. zimmer joined the rays in 2004 after leaving the yankees for whom he had been a coach under joe torre and remained with the club until his death in june of 2014.
i couldn't find a card showing the number (and was very glad to find this 2010 dav card) and that is due to zimmer's role with the rays being a special advisor rather than a coach. however, he donned the uniform during spring training to provide some on field coaching to the players before moving to an executive suite during the regular season. according to baseball reference, no rays player ever wore 66. i'm not sure if other field personnel wore it before zimmer, but we know nobody will after.
i think this is the first instance of the leg number being used to represent a retired number in this collection, but fisk's 1985 topps record breaker card gives a good shot of the number which is too often obscured by catcher's gear. fisk, who wore number 27 with the red sox (we will see that covered in a future post) turned the number around when he joined the white sox in 1981. he wound up playing in more games as a member of the white sox than he had for the red sox which doesn't seem quite right to me.
fisk retired after he was released by the white sox during the 1993 season, just a few days after he broke bob boone's record for most games played as a catcher. his release effectively ended his career, and he did not associate with the white sox until he returned for the first time four years later, on september 14, 1997, when they retired his number (although it hadn't been worn by anyone since fisk's departure). as the all-time home run champ among catchers should be, fisk was elected to the hall of fame in 2000.
a couple more "high numbers" are retired, but are not included in my collection. the cardinals retired number 85 for their owner august busch, and the guardians franchise has retired number 455 in honor of their fans who achieved 455 consecutive sellouts at jacobs field during the 1990's. i am not sure how many franchises have retired a number for their fans, but i know that the nhl's minnesota wild has done it - they chose number 1.
i am tracking a few things as we go, even though the information is already available elsewhere.
retired numbers by team (through the 18 posts so far):
yankees - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16
giants - 3, 4, 11
pirates - 1, 4, 8, 9, 11
guardians - 3, 5, 14, 18, 19, 455
red sox - 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 14
phillies - 1, 14, 15
cardinals - 1, 2, 6, 9, 10, 14, 17, 85
reds - 1, 5, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 18
braves - 3, 6, 10
astros - 5, 7
mets - 14, 16, 17, 18
orioles - 4, 5, 8
dodgers - 1, 2, 4, 14, 19
twins - 3, 6, 7, 10, 14
white sox - 2, 3, 4, 9, 11, 14, 16, 19, 72
brewers - 1, 4, 19
tigers - 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 11, 16
cubs - 10, 14
royals - 5, 10
padres - 6, 19
athletics - 9
angels - 11
expos - 8, 10
rangers - 7, 10
major league baseball
rays - 12, 66
diamondbacks
blue jays
rockies - 17
mariners - 11
nationals - 11
marlins
retired number frequency:
1 - retired by 9 teams
2 - retired by 5 teams
3 - retired by 7 teams
4 - retired by 8 teams
5 - retired by 7 teams
6 - retired by 7 teams
7 - retired by 4 teams
8 - retired by 6 teams (retired by yankees for two players)
9 - retired by 6 teams
10 - retired by 9 teams (retired by expos for two players)
11 - retired by 8 teams
12 - retired by 1 team
13 - retired by 1 team
14 - retired by 10 teams (retired by mets and dodgers for same person)
15 - retired by 2 teams
16 - retired by 4 teams (includes mets who will formally retire the number in 2024)
17 - retired by 3 teams
18 - retired by 3 teams (includes mets who will formally retire the number in 2024)
19 - retired by 5 teams
66 - retired by 1 team
72 - retired by 1 team
85 - retired by 1 team
455 - retired by 1 team
unnumbered players - 12 players recognized by 4 teams
running total of unique hall of famers (including those without numbers): 91
running total of non-hall of famers: 31
Retiring a number like 455 is weird. It's not like a player would ever wear that jersey number. They should just honor it in other ways... like create a bar or restaurant at the stadium called Club 455 (or something like that).
ReplyDeleteDidn't know about the 455 retirement. My first thought was that Futurama episode where the Mets had players with fractions and decimals because they retired all the whole numbers.
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