March 12, 2006

The Numbers Game

JT Snow is wearing #84 -- the uniform number worn by his father, Jack Snow, during his football career with the Los Angeles Rams.

When Snow gets into a game next month, it will be the highest number worn by a Red Sock player during the regular season. The current highest number? #82, worn by Johnny Lazor in 1943 (also that year, Lou Lucier wore #81).

The lowest number that has never been worn? 64!

Also: Only eight players have worn #13. It's the fewest number of players for any number under 50 (no one wore it from 1940-1984). That includes #9; nine players wore that number, including Bobby Doerr, who later had his more famous #1 retired.

The list of Red Sox uniform numbers is here.

David Wells is scheduled to pitch in his first spring training game on Thursday. He threw to hitters for the first time on Saturday.

2 comments:

Jere said...

http://www.redsoxnation.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=1134

Click there for the thread I started on 1/17/04 on Royal Rooters about Lucier and Lazor. (I got 7 responses, none of which had anything to do with what I was talking about.)

While on vacation in Seattle later that year, I found a newspaper from the forties with a headline about Lazor. He had starred in a game for the Sox, but th estory was a big one in the Seattle paper because he'd played semi-pro ball in the Pacific Northwest. But it gave clues as to why his number was so high.

Jere said...

http://www.redsoxnation.net/forums/
index.php?showtopic=1134

There's the link again, it may be too long for this window.