{"id":18447,"date":"2022-03-06T05:53:48","date_gmt":"2022-03-06T11:53:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/?p=18447"},"modified":"2022-01-19T11:49:15","modified_gmt":"2022-01-19T17:49:15","slug":"by-the-numbers-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/2022\/03\/by-the-numbers-18\/","title":{"rendered":"By The Numbers \u2013 18"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

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 #18.\u00a0 78 different players have donned #18 while playing in Chicago, 41 for the White Sox and 37 for the Cubs.<\/p>\n

\"\"Bill Madlock essentially replaced two of the Cubs biggest stars of the 1960s when he joined the team for his rookie season in 1974.\u00a0 Acquired for future Hall of Famer Ferguson Jenkins, Madlock took the spot of Hall of Famer Ron Santo at the hot corner.\u00a0 If he felt any pressure, he didn’t show it, hitting .313 with 9 home runs, good enough for a third place finish in Rookie of the Year voting.\u00a0 In 1975, he broke out in a big way, earning his first All Star nod on his way to a batting title.\u00a0 In 1976, Madlock repeated as batting champion, hitting .339 and beating out Ken Griffey Sr. on the final day of the season.\u00a0 With the dawn of free agency on the horizon, Madlock asked the Cubs for a multi-year contract with a salary of $200,000, more than double what he had earned in 1976.\u00a0 Team owner Phillip K. Wrigley had other ideas,\u00a0announcing that Madlock would be traded “to anyone foolish enough to want him.”\u00a0 In February of 1977, that so-called foolish team turned out to be the Giants, who sent Bobby Murcer and Steve Ontiveros, among others, to the Cubs.\u00a0 In July of 2016, this would be ranked as one of the five worst trades in Cub history.<\/p>\n

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

Acquired by the White Sox, along with Tyler Flowers and 2 minor leaguers, from the Braves in exchange for Javier Vazquez and Boone Logan, Brent Lillibridge donned #18 while hitting an anemic .158 in 95 at bats spread across 46 games for the 2009 White Sox.\u00a0\u00a0Lillibridge stuck with the big league team in 2010, improving his average to .224 in only 64 games. \u00a02011 was his best season, setting career highs in home runs, RBIs, batting average, and OPS. \u00a0On April 11, he hit the 10,000th home run in White Sox history off Dallas Braden and the A\u2019s.\u00a0 Lillibridge struggled again in 2012, with his average dropping down to .175 before the June 24th trade that sent him, along with Zach Stewart, to the Red Sox for Kevin Youkilis.<\/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":[123,9845,9879,4932,125,582,120,265,5696,256,44,115,1492,9878,2362,4100,258,1551,6580,9880,869,49,51,2186],"class_list":["post-18447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baseball","tag-as","tag-bill-madlock","tag-bobby-murcer","tag-boone-logan","tag-braves","tag-brent-lillibridge","tag-cubs","tag-dallas-braden","tag-fergie-jenkins","tag-giants","tag-hof","tag-indians","tag-javier-vazquez","tag-ken-griffey-sr","tag-kevin-youkilis","tag-philip-k-wrigley","tag-red-sox","tag-ron-santo","tag-rookie-of-the-year-award","tag-steve-ontiveros","tag-tyler-flowers","tag-white-sox","tag-yankees","tag-zach-stewart"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18447","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=18447"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18449,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18447\/revisions\/18449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}