{"id":17526,"date":"2021-07-28T04:51:41","date_gmt":"2021-07-28T10:51:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/?p=17526"},"modified":"2021-06-12T15:19:58","modified_gmt":"2021-06-12T21:19:58","slug":"by-the-numbers-45-bonus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/2021\/07\/by-the-numbers-45-bonus\/","title":{"rendered":"By The Numbers \u2013 45 Bonus!"},"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. By 1937, numbers finally appeared across all uniforms, both home and away, across both major leagues. Since that time, 81 distinct numbers have been worn by members of the White Sox, while the Cubs boast 76.<\/p>\n

Sunday, we continued our look at those players, picking our favorite, if not the best, player to wear each uniform number for both Chicago teams with #45.\u00a0 Today, we take a special bonus look at someone who wore #45 during a Windy City Classic exhibition game in 1994.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>After winning his third NBA championship in the summer of 1993, Michael Jordan retired from basketball.\u00a0 He signed a contract with the White Sox in February of 1994,\u00a0\u201cI chose to try to play baseball just to see if I could,\u201d Jordan said when he signed the contract.\u00a0 \u201cI’m not doing it as a distraction and I’m not doing it as a media hog or looking for the media exposure from it. It’s one of the wishes my father had and I had as a kid.\u201d\u00a0 Jordan’s father had been murdered the previous July and\u00a0Jordan\u2019s memories of his father played a large role in his deciding what he should do next.<\/p>\n

Jordan, who hadn’t played baseball since high school, had a difficult spring training, hitting .152 in 46 at bats, and he was assigned to Double-A Birmingham.\u00a0 First, though, was the annual exhibition game between the two Chicago teams on April 7 at Wrigley Field.\u00a0 Jordan was penciled in to the starting lineup, batting sixth.\u00a0\u00a0In the sixth inning, Jordan hit an RBI single off veteran Dave Otto, and in the seventh, he bounced a Chuck Crim pitch down the third-base line for a game-tying double.\u00a0 The crowd, White Sox and Cubs fans alike, rose to their feet and roared, as\u00a0Jordan smiled, stuck out his tongue, and tipped his helmet at second base.<\/p>\n

Jordan finished the day 2 for 5, with 2 RBIs, an error, and base running gaffe.\u00a0\u00a0“Who would ever think I would be out there playing in Wrigley Field?\u201d Jordan said.\u00a0 \u201cIt was a great feeling just to come out there and do well.\u201d\u00a0 Jordan reported to Birmingham the following day and, after the labor strife that ended the 1994 season early spread in to 1995, Jordan left baseball, returned to the Bulls, and won another three NBA championships.<\/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. By 1937, numbers finally appeared across all uniforms, both home and away, across both major leagues. 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":[34,568],"tags":[9646,77,898,1772,9648,120,9647,115,374,49,9645,595,51],"class_list":["post-17526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baseball","category-basketball","tag-1993-nba-finals","tag-1994-strike","tag-birmingham-barons","tag-bulls","tag-chuck-crim","tag-cubs","tag-dave-otto","tag-indians","tag-michael-jordan","tag-white-sox","tag-windy-city-classic","tag-wrigley-field","tag-yankees"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17526","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=17526"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17530,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17526\/revisions\/17530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}