A pitcher wearing number 1? It’s happened before

It’s rare but not unique. Five pitchers in MLB history had worn uniform number 1 before MacKenzie Gore of the Nationals began wearing it in 2023.

Gore became the first Nationals’ pitcher to wear a single-digit number, let alone number 1. He also became the first MLB pitcher to wear it for more than one season. (He had done it while with San Diego in ’22.) Gore told the Washington Post’s Jesse Dougherty that he began wearing no. 1 on youth teams because at the time he was smaller than his teammates.

One of the five pitchers before Gore to wear number 1 was a member of the 1962 Senators: Jack Jenkins. Despite being an avid fan of the expansion team, I have to admit I don’t remember that guy.

For the record, as a 19-year-old, Jenkins started — and completed, sort of – the last game of the 1962 season. It was the second game of a double-header in Boston.  He got the first batter in bottom of the ninth of a 1-1 game before issuing a walk and a game-ending home run; still, a pretty creditable performance.  He pitched in four games for the Nats in ’63 before making it back for one game with the Dodgers — in 1969.  

Ed Gallagher of the 1932 Boston Red Sox was the first pitcher to wear no. 1, when uniform numbers were not yet universal. The Phillies in 1939 were the last team to adopt them.

Uniform no. 1 isn’t available any more on eight teams. The Brewers, Cardinals, Dodgers, Phillies, Pirates, Red Sox, Reds and Yankees all have retired the number after it was worn by revered players or managers.

In the first decade of the 20th Century, several teams began assigning numbers to players in the day’s scorecard and displaying those numbers on the scoreboard batting order. By 1911, Washington was among the teams doing this. The numbers for the players were changed frequently so fans would have to buy new scorecards.

Numbers on uniforms were used by a few Negro league and minor league teams before they appeared on the backs of players in the still-segregated majors. In 1916, Cleveland, newly known as the Indians, experimented with uniform numbers on the players’ sleeves, but soon abandoned them. The Cardinals briefly tried and quickly abandoned numbers in the early 1920s.

Then, before the 1929 season, the Yankees announced that the team would begin putting numbers of the back of players’ uniforms. Cleveland quickly followed suit and, because of a rain-out in New York, actually beat the Yankees onto the field with the numbered players.

 The Yankees assigned the first set of the team’s numbers according to positions in the batting order. So Babe Ruth famously got 3 and Lou Gehrig got 4. Today, no other Yankee wears those retired numbers. In fact, with Derek Jeter’s retirement (he wore no. 2), nobody in a Yankees’ uniform will be wearing numbers 1 through 9 again.

According to Gary Sarnoff, author of books about the 1924 and 1933 pennant-winning Senators (Team of Destiny and The Wrecking Crow of ’33), Washington began wearing uniform numbers a year after the Yankees. Manager Walter Johnson wore number 27 that season.

Traditionally, the no. 1 often had been assigned to a player who bats at the top of the order. When most teams began using numbers, as with the Yankees, they were assigned based on the batting order.

In 1939, the Reds began assigning their manager uniform no. 1. That ended forever once Fred Hutchinson’s no.1 was retired following his death from cancer in 1964. Over the years, other managers have worn no. 1, retaining it after their playing days. Billy Martin with the Yankees was an example.

Three pitchers active in 2023 wore 0 (if zero is really a number, rather than just a place-holder): the Mets’ Adam Ottavino, the Cubs’ Marcus Stroman and the Yankees’ Domingo German. With German in the minors, Stroman took over 0 when he signed with the Yankees. A handful of other pitchers wear single digit numbers.

A pitcher for the Rays, Luis Patiño, wore no.1 in 2022. In 2020, so did Shun Yamaguchi of the Blue Jays, Dougherty reported. Neither is a household name, but neither is Gore, yet.

Gore wore no. 1 through high school, but didn’t ask for it when he was in the minors. That would have been an audacious move for a young player. He wore 89 in his first major league camp with the Padres, Dougherty wrote. When Gore made the team out of spring training, Padres’ general manager A.J. Preller offered him uniform no. 1. Preller had scouted Gore in North Carolina before the Padres drafter him in 2017 and recalled the pitcher’s unusual choice of a number.

 The 2022 deadline trade of Juan Soto and Josh Bell to the Padres sent Gore to the Nationals with CJ Abrams, James Wood, Robert Hassell III, Jarlin Susana and Luke Voit. Because of arm trouble, Gore didn’t appear in a game the rest of the season.

None of the seven Nationals who have worn no. 1 did it for more than two seasons, Dougherty reported. The last was Cesar Hernandez in 2022.

Nats’ manager Davey Martinez wore No. 1 as an outfielder with the Expos, Giants and Rangers. “Numbers are just numbers,” he told Dougherty. “I don’t know MacKenzie other than him wearing no. 1. He loves it. It’s good.”

This also appeared on July 8, 2023, in Here’s the Pitch, the daily online newsletter of the Internet Baseball Writers Association.