When did players start wearing numbers?

Answer 1

The 1916 Cleveland Indians were the first team to wear numbers on their jerseys. The rest of the owners in Baseball didn't like that idea and Cleveland quickly abandoned the jersey numbers. It wasn't until 1929 that they came back, when the New York Yankees started putting numbers on the back of the jersey. By 1931, the American League ruled that all team should put numbers on jerseys and in 1932 the National League followed suit.

Answer 2

There had been a couple of attempts to use numbers in the major leagues before the idea caught on. In 1916, and again in 1917, the Cleveland Indians experimented with numbers on their sleeves, as did the Cardinals in 1923.

On January 22, 1929, the Yankees became the first team to use numbers regularly, thinking that fans could recognize players more easily that way. Initially, players were given numbers based on the batting order - for example, Babe Ruth batted third, so he wore No. 3. It took until 1937, however, for every team to have their numbers on all their shirts - the last to change being the home uniforms for the Philadelphia A's.

Answer 3

The first recorded instance of this happening was in 1907, but the idea took a while to be used by all teams. It was not until 1929 that a major league team used number for any length of time, and complete acceptance did not occur until the mid-1930s.

Interestingly, there is no MLB rule that requires a player to have a number on a uniform -- occasionally a MLB player will wear a uniform without a number, and there is no penalty.

Answer 4

The New York Yankees began wearing jersey numbers in 1929 and the rest of the American League teams began in 1931. National League teams started wearing jersey numbers in 1932.