Baseball it's a Numbers Game

Athletes wear uniforms with numbers to help fans and officials identify the players.  Baseball is unlike football where certain positions are assigned certain numbers. Baseball loves numbers as much as any sport out there and some players will go out of their way to get a number they "always" wear if it is available. As a result you can have some impressive years by men wearing the same number around the league. My eye was drawn this year to the number 27. 22 of 30 teams had someone wear the number this season and the starting roster they could put together is impressive offensively.

C - John Jaso (Sea)
1B - Chris Parmelee (Cle) / Lyle Overbay (Atl)
2B - Jose Altuve (Hou)
3B - Scott Rolen (Cin)
SS - Jhonny Peralta (Det)
LF - Matt Kemp (LAD)
CF - Mike Trout (LAA)
RF - Mike Stanton (Mia)
DH - Raul Ibanez (NYY)
Bench - Carlos Gomez (OF/Mil); Brayan Pena (C/KC); Leonys Martin (OF/Tex); Placido Polanco (3B/2B/Phi); Endy Chavez (OF/Bal); Wil Nieves (C/1B/Ari)



SP - Jordan Zimmermann (Was)
SP - Jeff Karstens (Pit)
SP - Brett Cecil (Tor)
RP - Micha Owings (SD)
RP - Cesar Ramos (TB)
RP - Jeurys Familia (NYM)

Teams without a #27 this season: Boston, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Cleveland, Colorado , Oakland, San Francisco, St. Louis Cardinals

Does this mean the number 27 is blessed or a sign of greatness? No, it means 22 MLB players wore that number this season. That is the joy with baseball, sometimes you just look at a number and pull something noteworthy out of it. Can you identify a more challenging number in baseball this season?