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NEW YORK YANKEESJANUARY 22, 2016The Yankees’ Uniform Crisis
MICHAEL BAUMANN
33SHARES +11 SHARE
SPORTSAGE/ICON SPORTSWIRE
It’s probably a good thing that the Yankees haven’t minted any iconic, Hall of Fame-type players recently. Not good for New York, I guess. The Yankees last finished under .500 when there were only 26 teams in the league and only four of them made the playoffs, but they haven’t made it to*the Division Series since 2012, and they are no longer baseball’s implacable financial power.
But the Yankees have another problem—they’re running out of uniform numbers.
That seems crazy—there are 101 uniform numbers available under current uniform norms (1 through 99, plus 0 and 00), and only 25 players on an active roster—but in spring training, it’s going to be a real issue for the Yankees very soon.
Here’s how you get a number crunch. Each team brings its 40-man roster to spring training, plus non-roster invitees, who usually represent a mix of non-Rule 5 draft-eligible prospects and veterans on tryouts. The Yankees haven’t announced their full list of NRIs for 2016, but last year they brought 27.
Already you can see that things are getting a little tight—that’s 67 players to take to Florida or Arizona, which is why you get so many wacky numbers in Grapefruit League games.
Add in eight uniformed coaches and a bullpen catcher, who also gets a number, and you’re up to 76 guys for 101 numbered spots. Teams often invite former players as guest instructors, so, for instance, Greg Bird can spend a day or two picking Reggie Jackson’s brain about hitting, but Yankee instructors tend to wear the numbers they wore in the pros, regardless of whether they’re in current use or retired, so that could add to the number shortage, but doesn’t.
Not even Spring Training’s wacky numbers are enough for a team like the Yankees. (Cliff Welch/Icon Sportswire)
The real problem—and why this is a Yankees-specific issue—is the retired numbers. Teams retire numbers to honor great players from their history, and not only do the Yankees have more history (they were the first team to put numbers on uniforms, and the first to retire a number), they’ve had more great players. Not only that, they also have a fairly liberal policy regarding jersey retirements—they don’t require a player to have made the Hall of Fame, for instance, and I support that.
A player can be iconic for one franchise without meeting the standards of Cooperstown, and retiring a number is a great way to signify that status to fans who might be too young to remember. Ultimately, retiring Elston Howard’s number, for instance, makes a bigger difference than retiring Babe Ruth’s.
The Yankees have retired 20 different numbers over the years for 21 different players (22 if you count Mariano Rivera’s number retirement as separate from the leaguewide retirement of 42 for Jackie Robinson, which makes the Yankees the only team in baseball to have retired the number of a player who didn’t play for them, but did beat them in a World Series).
Plus there’s the matter of Derek Jeter’s No. 2, which has not been retired officially, but go ahead, Rob Refsnyder, ask for it and see what happens.
All told, the Yankees need 97 uniform numbers, give or take, in order to field a spring training team, and they only have 101 to choose from, even if they distribute 0 and 00, which seems cheeky for a team that won’t let its players wear beards.
Except, they don’t only have 101 numbers to choose from. Here’s MLB rule 3.03 (a), which is the only official instruction in the rulebook about uniform numbers: “All players on a team shall wear uniforms identical in color, trim and style, and all players’ uniforms shall include minimal six-inch numbers on their backs.”
That’s it. Doesn’t that seem crazy? Almost every other sport lays out specific instructions as to which uniform numbers can be worn, but not MLB. Everyone freaked out about Eddie Gaedel’s one stunt plate appearance, but it’s a historical footnote that it was 100 percent legal for him to wear 1/8 on the back of his jersey. It doesn’t say they have to be one or two digits, or integers, or even Arabic numerals.
Now, for a team less self-serious about aesthetics than the Yankees, this would represent a tremendous opportunity. Fractions, decimals, scientific notation—all of that is potentially available to the big league ballplayer. The story goes that Yasiel Puig wears No. 66 because Dodger clubhouse manager Mitch Poole said he was a “little devil,” but there is nothing stopping Puig from wearing No. 666 if he so chose. If you can fit Avogadro’s number on your back, it’s within MLB uniform regulations to take the field wearing it.
So as it turns out, the Yankees aren’t running out of uniform numbers, because when a rookie gets called up down the road and asks for Lou Gehrig’s No. 4 or Joe DiMaggio’s No. 5, the clubhouse manager can say to him, “You can’t have those numbers, but pick one in between—your options are infinite.”
RELATED ITEMSAL EASTFEATUREDMICHAEL BAUMANNMLB TONIGHTNEW YORK YANKEES
Knuckleball.com
CONNECT
NEW YORK YANKEESJANUARY 22, 2016The Yankees’ Uniform Crisis
MICHAEL BAUMANN
33SHARES +11 SHARE
SPORTSAGE/ICON SPORTSWIRE
It’s probably a good thing that the Yankees haven’t minted any iconic, Hall of Fame-type players recently. Not good for New York, I guess. The Yankees last finished under .500 when there were only 26 teams in the league and only four of them made the playoffs, but they haven’t made it to*the Division Series since 2012, and they are no longer baseball’s implacable financial power.
But the Yankees have another problem—they’re running out of uniform numbers.
That seems crazy—there are 101 uniform numbers available under current uniform norms (1 through 99, plus 0 and 00), and only 25 players on an active roster—but in spring training, it’s going to be a real issue for the Yankees very soon.
Here’s how you get a number crunch. Each team brings its 40-man roster to spring training, plus non-roster invitees, who usually represent a mix of non-Rule 5 draft-eligible prospects and veterans on tryouts. The Yankees haven’t announced their full list of NRIs for 2016, but last year they brought 27.
Already you can see that things are getting a little tight—that’s 67 players to take to Florida or Arizona, which is why you get so many wacky numbers in Grapefruit League games.
Add in eight uniformed coaches and a bullpen catcher, who also gets a number, and you’re up to 76 guys for 101 numbered spots. Teams often invite former players as guest instructors, so, for instance, Greg Bird can spend a day or two picking Reggie Jackson’s brain about hitting, but Yankee instructors tend to wear the numbers they wore in the pros, regardless of whether they’re in current use or retired, so that could add to the number shortage, but doesn’t.
Not even Spring Training’s wacky numbers are enough for a team like the Yankees. (Cliff Welch/Icon Sportswire)
The real problem—and why this is a Yankees-specific issue—is the retired numbers. Teams retire numbers to honor great players from their history, and not only do the Yankees have more history (they were the first team to put numbers on uniforms, and the first to retire a number), they’ve had more great players. Not only that, they also have a fairly liberal policy regarding jersey retirements—they don’t require a player to have made the Hall of Fame, for instance, and I support that.
A player can be iconic for one franchise without meeting the standards of Cooperstown, and retiring a number is a great way to signify that status to fans who might be too young to remember. Ultimately, retiring Elston Howard’s number, for instance, makes a bigger difference than retiring Babe Ruth’s.
The Yankees have retired 20 different numbers over the years for 21 different players (22 if you count Mariano Rivera’s number retirement as separate from the leaguewide retirement of 42 for Jackie Robinson, which makes the Yankees the only team in baseball to have retired the number of a player who didn’t play for them, but did beat them in a World Series).
Plus there’s the matter of Derek Jeter’s No. 2, which has not been retired officially, but go ahead, Rob Refsnyder, ask for it and see what happens.
All told, the Yankees need 97 uniform numbers, give or take, in order to field a spring training team, and they only have 101 to choose from, even if they distribute 0 and 00, which seems cheeky for a team that won’t let its players wear beards.
Except, they don’t only have 101 numbers to choose from. Here’s MLB rule 3.03 (a), which is the only official instruction in the rulebook about uniform numbers: “All players on a team shall wear uniforms identical in color, trim and style, and all players’ uniforms shall include minimal six-inch numbers on their backs.”
That’s it. Doesn’t that seem crazy? Almost every other sport lays out specific instructions as to which uniform numbers can be worn, but not MLB. Everyone freaked out about Eddie Gaedel’s one stunt plate appearance, but it’s a historical footnote that it was 100 percent legal for him to wear 1/8 on the back of his jersey. It doesn’t say they have to be one or two digits, or integers, or even Arabic numerals.
Now, for a team less self-serious about aesthetics than the Yankees, this would represent a tremendous opportunity. Fractions, decimals, scientific notation—all of that is potentially available to the big league ballplayer. The story goes that Yasiel Puig wears No. 66 because Dodger clubhouse manager Mitch Poole said he was a “little devil,” but there is nothing stopping Puig from wearing No. 666 if he so chose. If you can fit Avogadro’s number on your back, it’s within MLB uniform regulations to take the field wearing it.
So as it turns out, the Yankees aren’t running out of uniform numbers, because when a rookie gets called up down the road and asks for Lou Gehrig’s No. 4 or Joe DiMaggio’s No. 5, the clubhouse manager can say to him, “You can’t have those numbers, but pick one in between—your options are infinite.”
RELATED ITEMSAL EASTFEATUREDMICHAEL BAUMANNMLB TONIGHTNEW YORK YANKEES
Knuckleball.com
