DETROIT — When Beau Brieske first started playing sports, he wore the No. 22 even though his mother objected.
“No,” she told him, “your number is 4.”
Brieske was born on April 4, 4/4, in hospital room No. 4. As he grew older, he started seeing more strange connections to the number. His initials are BB, the second letter of the alphabet. Two plus two. He finally began wearing the number in middle school or early high school. He wore it at Glendale Community College and later at Colorado State-Pueblo. He tried to wear the number when it was available in the minor leagues. And after wearing No. 63 as a rookie, Brieske was thrilled last season when it turned out No. 4 was up for grabs.
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“It’s always been my number,” he said. “It’s kind of good luck and gets me back to my roots.”
Last week, the Tigers recalled Brieske to the majors, and it helped the Tigers earn a curious distinction. Among baseball’s time-honored traditions, there has long been a stigma against pitchers wearing single-digit numbers. But this season, the Tigers have had three pitchers wear single-digits in Brieske, Shelby Miller (No. 7) and Jack Flaherty (No. 9).
How rare is that?
Incredibly so. The Tigers are the first team in the history of the American League to have three pitchers wear single-digit jerseys in the same season, according to research from Kenny Jackelen of Baseball-Reference. The only other team overall to match this oddity since 1944 was the 2022 San Diego Padres, who had MacKenzie Gore (1), Blake Snell (4) and Javy Guerra (8).
“At the end of the day, they’re just numbers,” Brieske said. “But if it means something to you, I feel like you should go with something like that as opposed to just a random number you’re ‘supposed’ to have.”
Tigers manager A.J. Hinch isn’t often one to cling to antiquated traditions, but Hinch is among the crowd who have commented or teased pitchers for wearing single-digit numbers.
“Yeah, it’s unique,” Hinch said. “I don’t remember having one, let alone, what is it, three now?”
Jack Flaherty wore No. 9 growing up but had not worn the number in the major leagues until this season. (Brian Bradshaw Sevald / USA Today)
Like so many things in this game, the reason pitchers rarely wear single-digit numbers is rooted in history.
The 1929 Indians and Yankees were the first teams to wear numbers on the backs of their jerseys. The numbers famously reflected the player’s spot in the batting order, hence Babe Ruth’s No. 3, Lou Gehrig’s No. 4 and so on. Catchers typically wore No. 8, and backup catchers more commonly wore No. 9. Pitchers on the ’29 Yankees wore Nos. 11-21.
Mark Stang is a coauthor of the 1996 book “Baseball by the Numbers,” a 1,152-page, 7-pound tome on baseball numerology. “It’s not a quick read, but it’ll settle a lot of bar bets,” Stang said.
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Stang’s book and further research show most early pitchers who wore single digits were rookies who were called up midseason. Most of them pitched only a handful of games. “Blink,” Stang said, “and you missed them.” One of those pitchers was Hall of Famer Bob Feller, who wore No. 9 as a 17-year-old rookie before switching to No. 14 and later No. 19. The 1942 Phillies hold the record with five different pitchers wearing single-digit numbers, per Baseball-Reference.
“Up until the ’50s, there’s at least 15 (pitchers) every decade wearing a single digit,” Stang said. “By the time you get to the ’70s the number is two. In the ’80s it was one. In the ’90s it’s three.”
Even as the batting order system disappeared and players began wearing more varied jersey numbers, pitchers still shied away from single digits. Dooley Womack briefly wore No. 3 for the 1970 Oakland A’s until Reggie Jackson told an equipment manager that single-digit numbers were for regulars. Womack then switched to No. 16.
“I don’t know that there was ever any real consensus on why any of this stuff happened once you get away from the batting order of the early ’30s,” Stang said. “But I do think when you see a pitcher wearing a single-digit number, it catches your attention. It just looks odd, and maybe that’s the tradition in and of itself. It’s what the fans of the game are used to seeing, and this strikes them as something other than that.”
Today, center-field cameras focus on the pitcher during each at-bat. The first thing viewers may see is the jersey number of the pitcher. No other position receives quite the same attention.
“You wouldn’t be writing an article about first basem*n wearing a single digit,” Stang said. “But for pitchers, everybody goes, ‘Hey, wait a minute. That strikes me as unusual.’”
In 2001, pitcher Rob Bell was traded to the Texas Rangers. He requested the lowest number available and wound up with No. 6. Soon he was the focus of a Wall Street Journal article on the subject.
“I think I just went brain dead that day,” Zack Minasian, then the Rangers’ clubhouse manager, told the newspaper.
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That is how taboo it was for pitchers to wear single digits less than 25 years ago. Today, however, that stigma has softened, as have restrictions on jersey numbers in other sports.
“This day and age, it’s anything goes,” Stang said. “It’s kind of the wild west. The only thing you’re not going to see is three digits.”
The NFL overhauled its rigid numbering rules before the 2021 season, now allowing all players except offensive and defensive linemen to wear single-digit numbers. In the NFL, players were not permitted to wear 0 until the 2023 season.
In baseball, it was also rare for players to wear numbers above 50 until the 1980s. Today Yankees star Aaron Judge wears 99, another example of how times have changed.
“I’ve definitely heard about (the stigma) before, but similar to the NFL, I feel like it’s being phased out,” Brieske said.
History, though, makes the Tigers’ recent trend even more interesting. The Tigers are charter members of the American League, founded in 1901. On the walls of Comerica Park, the Tigers have retired five single-digit numbers in Lou Whitaker’s No. 1, Charlie Gehringer’s No. 2, Alan Trammell’s No. 3, Hank Greenberg’s No. 5 and Al Kaline’s No. 6.
That leaves only five single-digit numbers available, counting 0, and three of them just so happen to belong to current Detroit pitchers.
Brieske is the only one of those three to have worn a single-digit number before in the major leagues. He joins a handful of other active pitchers wearing single digits, including Gore and Yuki Matsui (1), Snell (4), Alek Manoah (6), and Adam Ottavino and Marcus Stroman, who both wear 0.
“I feel like it’s a little weird when you see it for the first time,” said Detroit right-hander Casey Mize, who wears No. 12. “But more and more, guys are doing it. I don’t think players really care too much.”
Shelby Miller wears No. 7 because it was his wife’s high school volleyball number. (Brian Bradshaw Sevald / USA Today)
When the Tigers signed Flaherty this offseason, he negotiated an exchange with pitcher Reese Olson to take his No. 45 uniform. Flaherty wanted 45 because the digits added up to nine, the number he wore growing up. It didn’t hurt that 45 paid tribute to Cardinals legend Bob Gibson and late Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs.
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Growing up, Flaherty said his teams usually handed out numbers based on size, and Flaherty just so happened to end up with 9. He stuck with it until pro baseball, where he wore 32 and 22 with the Cardinals and 15 last season with the Orioles.
When he first signed with the Tigers, 9 was occupied by infielder Nick Maton. But when the Tigers designated Maton for assignment, the number opened up. Flaherty made the switch just before Opening Day.
“It’s something I’ve always wanted,” he said. “Everybody’s got a favorite number and something they’ve always worn, and they don’t always get a chance to wear it.”
And no, Flaherty said, he did not receive any teasing about wearing a single digit.
“Not sure why that’s a thing,” he said. “No idea.”
Miller, the man wearing No. 7, disputed that claim. “I haven’t (gotten teased),” he said. “Jack did when he took Reese’s number and then switched to 9.”
Miller has played for nine MLB teams and worn a host of different numbers. But until this season, he had never before worn a single digit. When he signed with the Tigers over the winter, he said he received a small list of jerseys still available.
“It was like 13, which I don’t really like,” Miller said. “I usually would wear 18, but we got Kenta (Maeda). Everything else was like 50 and above.”
Turns out No. 7 was on that list, and 7 happens to be the number Miller’s wife, Erika, wore as a high school volleyball player at Metro Detroit’s Milford High School.
“I was like, ‘I’ll go with whatever you wore in Detroit and see if it brings me a little luck,” Miller said.
Last week, the Tigers placed Miller on the injured list with ulnar nerve inflammation. It was an unfortunate break for Miller, but it opened the door for Brieske and his No. 4 uniform. Turns out it led to a strange bit of history, too.
“If you feel good in it and it means something to you,” Brieske said, “that’s what a number should be.”
(Top photo of Beau Brieske: Duane Burleson / Getty Images)
