{"id":17307,"date":"2021-06-20T01:02:19","date_gmt":"2021-06-20T07:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/?p=17307"},"modified":"2021-05-09T10:29:46","modified_gmt":"2021-05-09T16:29:46","slug":"by-the-numbers-50","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/2021\/06\/by-the-numbers-50\/","title":{"rendered":"By The Numbers \u2013 50"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In 1929, uniform numbers appeared on the back of baseball jerseys for the first time, thanks to the Indians and the Yankees.\u00a0 By 1937, numbers finally appeared across all uniforms, both home and away, across both major leagues.\u00a0 Since that time, 81 distinct numbers have been worn by members of the White Sox, while the Cubs boast 76.<\/p>\n

Today, we continue our look at those players, picking our favorite, if not the best, player to wear each uniform number for both Chicago teams with #50.\u00a0 63 different players have donned #50 while playing in Chicago, 25 for the White Sox and 38 for the Cubs.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

John Danks was acquired by the White Sox from the Rangers for Brandon McCarthy\u00a0following the 2006 season.\u00a0 He broke camp with the Sox in 2007, making his major league debut on April 8 against the Twins at US Cellular Field, and finished the year with a 6-13 record and a 5.50 ERA.\u00a0\u00a02008 was a different story, as he posted\u00a0quite possibly the best outing of his career in game 163, throwing 8 scoreless innings of 2 hit ball against the Twins to secure the Central Division title.\u00a0 He finished the year with\u00a0a career-best 3.32 ERA, a 12-9 record, and the lone White Sox victory in the ALDS against the Rays.<\/p>\n

Danks had continued success in both 2009 and 2010, combining for a 28-22 record over the two years, with an ERA in the 3.70s both years.\u00a0 2011 wasn’t quite as good, as his ERA jumped to 4.33, but\u00a0the White Sox signaled their faith in Danks, signing him to a 5 year extension worth $65 million.\u00a0 It turned out to be ill-advised.\u00a0\u00a0Danks struggled through 9 starts in 2012 before hitting the disabled list with a mysterious shoulder injury.\u00a0 When he finally underwent surgery, doctors found a torn shoulder capsule.\u00a0 Very few pitchers have undergone this surgery, and even fewer have successfully returned to the same level they were before the injury.<\/p>\n

Sadly, Danks\u2019 recovery did not happen as anyone would have wanted, though not for a lack of effort.\u00a0 He returned in 2013, making 22 starts and going 4-14 with a 4.75 ERA.\u00a0 2014 was more of the same, as his ERA was 4.74, though his record improved to 11-11.\u00a0 And 2015, again, saw Danks put up an ERA of 4.71 in 30 starts.\u00a0 In 2016, Danks, in the final season of his contract and due $14.25 million, went 0-4 with a 7.25 ERA in April.\u00a0 With the surprising White Sox in first place after 1 month and with Danks accounting for half of the team\u2019s losses, being an innings eater was no longer good enough.\u00a0\u00a0He was designated for assignment on May 3, ending his White Sox career.<\/p>\n

On the north side of town, Les Lancaster donned #50 for 5 seasons with the Cubs, making his debut on April 7, 1987 against the Cardinals.\u00a0 His best season came in 1989, when he went 4-2 with a 1.36 ERA in 42 games as the surprising Cubs took home their second NL East title.\u00a0 He threw 6 innings in the NLCS against the Giants, winning game 2 and losing game 3.\u00a0 He was released by the Cubs at the end of spring training in 1992.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1929, uniform numbers appeared on the back of baseball jerseys for the first time, thanks to the Indians and the Yankees.\u00a0 By 1937, numbers finally appeared across all uniforms, both home and away, across both major leagues.\u00a0 Since that time, 81 distinct numbers have been worn by members of the White Sox, while the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[2180,2604,57,120,256,115,149,9536,1647,111,255,118,596,49,51],"class_list":["post-17307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baseball","tag-alds","tag-brandon-mccarthy","tag-cardinals","tag-cubs","tag-giants","tag-indians","tag-john-danks","tag-les-lancaster","tag-nlcs","tag-rangers","tag-rays","tag-twins","tag-us-cellular-field","tag-white-sox","tag-yankees"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17307"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17386,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17307\/revisions\/17386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}