When considering Jo Adell’s call up to the bigs I saw a great post on twitter by “John / @champions2002 that must be shared and contemplated…
John methodically went thru the available Angels uniform numbers. The current roster and retired numbers are all considered here.
I went further and looked up current coaching staff jersey numbers to hone the list of available numbers even further and came up with this preliminary list of available numbers:
Single digits: 1, 7, 8
Teens: 13, 14, 15, 19
Twenties: 20
Thirties: 34, 36
Forties: 41, 44, 45, 48
Fifties: 53, 56, 58, 59
Sixties: 66, 67, 69
Seventies: 71, 73, 76, 78, 79
Eighties: 80, 81, 84, 89
Nineties: 90, 91, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98
37 available numbers to choose from… except there ain’t! There are a few “unofficially retired” numbers in Angels lore…
ONE
Nobody has worn Jersey #1 since Bengie Molina left the club but that number is not being held out because of some special memories for Bengie. Nope great as he was, one only need to spy form the stands the framed jersey number 1 in the owner’s suite at the stadium to know Arte Moreno considers this his number.
FOURTEEN
I firmly believe that Mike Scioscia will see his jersey number 14 retired by the Angels one day. It might take the acquisition of a veteran who is superstitious about having that number to sway the powers that be.
FIFTEEN
Last worn by Tim Salmon in the 2006 season, the team will likely find a way to retire it one day. Jason Castro wore it back in Spring Training and switched to 16 based on a smattering of critiques from fans on twitter. This shows that any MLB club cannot stop a veteran form taking a jersey number.
THIRTY FOUR
R.I.P. Nick Adenhart… I can’t see a player choosing this one with the history in this franchise. Again, a superstar who is superstitious signing would be what is required for this unofficial retired number to go back into circulation.
FORTY FIVE
Likewise for the jersey number worn by the late Tyler Skaggs.
The five unoffically retired Angels jersey numbers leaves 32 available numbers for a rookie, even one as highly touted as Adell, to choose from.
Hold on though… the number zero and double zero have both been worn in Angels history (both for the first time in the past decade) so that brings us to 34 available jersey numbers.
Well then there are three numbers that might be off the list – 13 (bad luck), 69 (if you gotta ask), and 81 (Hell’s Angels) (don’t laugh and don’t dare go getting an Angels jersey with this number on it unless you want attention from both law enforcement and, well, some other folks).
That leave us with 31 good jersey numbers… except that nineteen of these available numbers are in the sixties or above – an indicator of a training camp scrub. So that leaves 12 good jersey numbers for Adell to choose from. And by the time this story has been posted Jo Adell will have chosen one of them for his jersey number and only eleven of these will be left:
7, 8, 19, 20, 36, 41, 44, 48, 53, 56, 58 and 59
Let’s hope Jo Adell picks a Hall of Fame jersey number out of this tiny selection for his coming Angels career.
The #29 representants the 2020’s, so l hope #20 is issued to Jo Adell for the next 10 seasons. Marsh #98 represents his octane #.
Good lord, I am shocked that there are so few available numbers. It is not like the Angels have been around for 100 years and have 20 guys in the hall of fame. Great read and thanks for the information but I would never have guessed the lack of number options.
7 would be good, to commemorate his batting 7th in his first game.
Nice analysis. Always love Rev’s features on jersey numbers.
Also can’t wait for the “worst Angel announcers” feature.
☝😍👍
Spoiler Alert: Joe Buttitta and Al Wisk are in the top two.
With Phyzz coming in number three. On the griipping hand, I liked Hud.
I loved Al Wisk! But yeah, Joe Buttitta was pretty awful. He used to call the Angels the A’s inadvertently.
Think wisely, Jo. This will be the number that goes on your HOF cap in 30 years…
Most of the remaining numbers can be eliminated. First it is highly unlikely he would change from 59 to another in the 50’s so 58 56 and 53 are out. Next he has posted before that he is annoyed how black prospects are compared only to black players so 48, 44, 20, and 19 are out. 8 used to be Upton’s and he just changed it because of Kobe so that would be a really bad way to start a career by picking it this year. That leaves his own 59, 7, 36, and 41.
After thinking about it, 7 is the most thematically likely one. It makes the 3 best players 27 17 and 7, the most prominent player to wear 7 is Mantle, so there is some “compare me to someone else rather than a black player” thing. Only issue is that it is the most likely to be wanted by a FA or any new player so if he doesn’t want to deal with that he won’t get it. Then again he might be pushed to it as Trout didn’t choose 27.
36 is the most meme-able. After all Trout got Vlad’s 27 so Adell getting Weaver 36 would fit and this world likes making this stuff happen so…
41 is pretty wide open and if he wants to change his number that one has the least issues.
Players are superstitious so he may stick with 59. After all big time players are picking higher numbers now.
Those are the most likely. Although that’s just based off one tweet and guessing.
My guess is 7 as it is also 7 letters in Jo Adell. Followed by 36 for the annoyance of Angels fans, 59 since he has it already and 41.