{"id":17548,"date":"2021-09-12T05:47:02","date_gmt":"2021-09-12T11:47:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/?p=17548"},"modified":"2021-08-15T16:16:20","modified_gmt":"2021-08-15T22:16:20","slug":"by-the-numbers-39","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/2021\/09\/by-the-numbers-39\/","title":{"rendered":"By The Numbers \u2013 39"},"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 #39.\u00a0 77 different players have donned #39 while playing in Chicago, 31 for the White Sox and 46 for the Cubs.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>First acquired in 1989, Roberto Hernandez, donning #39, made his major league debut on September 2, 1991, getting the start and going 7 innings for the victory in the White Sox win over the Royals. \u00a0He appeared in 9 games in the final month of the season, making the only 3 starts of his career, and finished the year with a 7.80 ERA.\u00a0 In 1992, Hernandez split the year between Triple A and Chicago, eventually supplanting Bobby Thigpen as the team\u2019s primary closer. \u00a0He finished the year with 12 saves and a sparkling 1.65 ERA.\u00a0 Hernandez had another great year in 1993, saving 38 games in 70 appearances with a 2.29 ERA as the White Sox won their final AL West title. \u00a0During the ALCS against the Blue Jays, Hernandez threw 4 scoreless innings in 4 appearances, earning 1 save.<\/p>\n

In the strike-shortened 1994 season, Hernandez struggled. \u00a0His ERA jumped to 4.91 and he saved only 14 games before the season ended on August 12, despite leading the league in games finished.\u00a0 When baseball returned in 1995, Hernandez bounced back somewhat, once again leading the league in games finished and lowering his ERA by nearly a full run to 3.92.\u00a0 1996 was a true return to form for Hernandez. \u00a0He led the league in games finished for the third straight year and lowered his ERA by 2 full runs to 1.91. \u00a0He earned his first All Star selection and, with 38 saves, finished 6th in Cy Young Award voting.\u00a0 Hernandez was well on his way to another strong season in 1997, with 27 saves and a 2.44 ERA, when he was included in the infamous White Flag trade on July 31, joining Wilson Alzarez and Danny Darwin in going to the Giants for the collection of Brian Manning, Lorenzo Barcelo, Mike Caruso, Keith Foulke, Bob Howry, and Ken Vining.<\/p>\n

On the other side of town, Andrew Chafin wore #39 for the 11 months he was a member of the Cubs.\u00a0 Acquired on August 31, the trade deadline of the shortened 2020 season, Chafin pitched in 4 games over the final month, posting a 3.00 ERA and retired the only batter he faced in the Wild Card series against the Marlins.\u00a0 In February, Chafin re-upped with the Cubs and became sort of a cult hero.\u00a0 On June 24, he was part of a combined no-hitter against the Dodgers.\u00a0 In 43 appearances for the Cubs in 2021, Chafin recorded a 2.06 ERA with 37 strikeouts in 39.1 innings of work before being traded to the A’s on July 27th.<\/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":[77,123,2790,9736,119,1509,4591,4887,120,1672,2596,116,256,115,2600,2594,2598,114,2599,2597,126,2595,49,5569,1494,51],"class_list":["post-17548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baseball","tag-1994-strike","tag-as","tag-alcs","tag-andrew-chafin","tag-blue-jays","tag-bob-howry","tag-bobby-thigpen","tag-brian-manning","tag-cubs","tag-cy-young-award","tag-danny-darwin","tag-dodgers","tag-giants","tag-indians","tag-keith-foulke","tag-ken-vining","tag-lorenzo-barcelo","tag-marlins","tag-mike-caruso","tag-roberto-hernandez","tag-royals","tag-white-flag-trade","tag-white-sox","tag-wild-card","tag-wilson-alvarez","tag-yankees"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17548"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17822,"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17548\/revisions\/17822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}