A major innovation in competitive sports quietly celebrated its century mark last year - the use of numerals on uniforms to identify athletes.  I had always believed it began in the 1920s with Major League Baseball.  According to the International Federation of Football History and Statistics, however, the history of uniform numbers began with a 1911 Australian rules football match in Sydney.

The IFFHS provides the history, along with a little dig at the Brits:

In 1911 there was a sensational innovation at a local "Australian Football" match in Sydney when the players of both teams each wore a different number on his back. The Sydney soccer clubs Leichhardt and HMS Powerful followed suit, and in 1911 wore squad numbers on the their backs for the first time in world football history. In 1912 it was mandatory in New South Wales (Australia) for players at official tournaments to wear numbers on their backs. Therefore, wearing squad numbers on the backs of jerseys is an Australian invention – not a British one, as they have claimed since the 1930's.

Most team sports have since taken the lead of Australian rules football and adopted their own numbering systems.  Here’s a look at the numbering history of a few of the world’s more popular team sports.

BASEBALL: Personally, I always assumed numerals on uniforms began with baseball in the 1920s.  The New York Yankees were the first team to regularly use uniform numbers in baseball starting in 1929, though the Cleveland Indians briefly had numbers in 1916.  The starter numbers were assigned to match the position in the batting order – 1 to the leadoff man, 4 to the cleanup hitter and so on.  Babe Ruth batted third in the Yankees lineup and was thus assigned jersey number 3 in and Lou Gehrig took number 4 and batted in the Yankees cleanup slot.  The timing of the introduction of uniform numerals to baseball means Babe Ruth did not wear his famous number 3 when he hit 60 home runs in 1927.

Trivia:    White Sox outfielder Carlos May wore his birth date, May 17, on the back of his uniform throughout his career.

SOCCER: Association football, aka, soccer, assigned numbers 1 through 11 corresponding to the starting players’ positions on the field.  Goalkeepers wore number 1 with defenders, midfielders and forwards wearing numbers in ascending order.  Until the 1990s, different players would wear the same number throughout the season depending on who started, so fans would know what position a player was playing, but not who the player was.          

Trivia:    Longtime indoor soccer goalkeeper Otto Orf wore his initials (00) as his jersey number for many years.

BASKETBALL: Numbers using digits 0-5 are mandated in college basketball, so referees can indicate fouls easily with their fingers.  The NBA permits higher numbers, but they are rare as players prefer to retain their college numbers.  Teams can have a 0 or a 00, but not both.

Trivia:   Wayne Getzky wasn’t the first great 99.  George Mikan wore 99 for the Minneapolis Lakers.  As a 6’10” center George Mikan changed the NBA in the 1950s and ushered in the modern era forcing two rule changes made to limit his effectiveness.  The NBA widened the lane from six to twelve feet, called "The Mikan Rule" and he had a role in the introduction of the shot clock.  His defensive dominance in college resulted in the NCAA banning defensive goaltending.  Later as the first commissioner of the ABA Mikan came up with the red, white and blue basketball and instituted the three-point line.

HOCKEY: Goalies generally wear number 1 or 30 and in the NHL’s first 50 years all other players generally wore numbers in between.  Wayne Gretzky (99), Phil Esposito (77) and Ken Hodge (88) burst the top off the high end of NHL numbers.

Trivia:    On September 29, 2006, Montreal Canadiens forward Guillaume Latendresse debuted number 84 completing the use of every number from 00-99 by at least one player in NHL history.

FOOTBALL: The NFL formalized its numbering system in 1952 and standardized it further in 1973:

• 1–9: Quarterbacks, kickers, and punters.
• 10–19: Same as 1–9, plus (since 2004) wide receivers only.
• 20–39: Running backs, fullbacks, cornerbacks, and safeties.
• 40-49: Same as 20–39, plus (on occasion) tight ends.
• 50–59: Linebackers and centers.
• 60–79: Offensive linemen and defensive linemen.
• 80–89: Wide receivers and tight ends.
• 90–99: Linebackers and defensive linemen.

Trivia:    Wausau’s Jim Otto wore 00 (a pun on his last name “aught-oh”) as the Oakland Raiders Hall of Fame center before the number was outlawed in 1973. 

RETIRED NUMBERS: The first retired number in sports was Ace Baily’s #6 on Valentine’s Day in 1934 by the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs.  His career, and nearly his life, was ended by an Eddie Shore cheap shot from behind after play had stopped.  Lou Gehrig’s “luckiest man on the face of the earth” speech in 1939 commemorated the first retirement of a baseball number.  The first football retired number was the New York Giants’ Ray Flaherty’s #1 in 1935.  Flaherty is also credited with inventing the screen pass while coaching the Washington Redskins in 1937.

Three major league teams have retired all, but two of their single digit numbers – the New York Yankees (2 and 6), Boston Bruins (1 and 6) and Montreal Canadiens (6 and 8).  Every number from 1-37 is retired by at least one Major League Baseball team.  Some teams like the Oakland Raiders and Dallas Cowboys don’t officially retire numbers, but they will take honored numbers out of circulation.  Some teams, like the Green Bay Packers, retire some numbers and take others out of circulation.

Here is a list of retired jersey numbers 00-99 (one name per number) plus a few retired ceremonial numbers of 100 or above.  Most numbers offered more than one option.  When a choice was possible, I opted for Wisconsin athletes first and tried to include as great a variety of sports and leagues as possible:

Some are more famous than others – be sure to click on the link to #59’s retiree and here for even more numerical nonsense.

As much as I searched, I couldn’t find any retired number 0, 69 or 96 at any level of any sport in any country.  Many baseball players, including Al Oliver, Junior Ortiz, Oscar Gamble and former Milwaukee Brewer Franklin Stubbs and 45 NBA players including Orlando Woolridge, Olden Polynice and Orien Greene wore number 0, but none well enough to have it retired.  0 is no longer permitted in the NFL. 

Mark Schlereth of the Denver Broncos and Washington Redskins is considered the best athlete ever to wear the sexually suggestive number 69, but neither team has deemed his number retirement worthy.  You would think that there would be a defensive lineman at some level worthy of having his number 96 retired, but as far as I can tell, the next will be the first.  Please let me know in the comments below if you know of any athlete who has had one of those numbers retired.