Players that wore different numbers on same team

[GrayJ12]

Just a couple of days ago, Spire Motorsports announced that Justin Haley would be driving the 7 for them starting this upcoming race and continuing into 2025. An interesting fact about this is that Justin, a former Spire driver, drove the 77 for the team in 2019-2021 and actually scored the team their first (and so far) only win.

It caused me to think - what athletes, in racing or otherwise, have worn different numbers on the same team?

Here are my first contributions to this thread (with some obvious inclusions):

Kobe Bryant



Lebron James



Paul George



John Riggins



Alex Bowman



Teddy Bridgewater



Spencer Dinwiddie

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

A great topic!

 

I thought of several with the Yankees (Rick Cerone 10, 11, 6; Bobby Murcer 1, 2; Oscar Gamble 17, 23; Jack Clark 6, 21, 33; Mike Pagliarulo 6, 13), but it's very hard to find pictures showing the uniform numbers. 

 

Turning to the Mets, the first ones that come to mind are Felix Millan and Rusty Staub.

 

 

 

 

[wildwing64]

Teemu Selanne wore number 8 during his first stint with the Ducks in the 90's.

 

When he returned in 2005-06, 8 was taken by Sandis Ozolinsh, so Selanne wore 13 instead. Ozolinsh was traded to the Rangers, and Selanne reclaimed his old number 8 in 2006-07.

 

 

[TaylorMade]

 

 

 

 

[FriedPickles]

Kyle Boller, former ravens QB

[BBTV]

Happens a lot with rookies.  You'll see some of these in the "players on the right team but wrong uniform" thread too.  Could post tons of examples, but I'll limit it to just a few.

 

Reggie White:

 

Recent example: Jalen Hurts

 

 

John Kruk (11, 19, 28, 29) (couldn't find a pic of him in #28, as he sold it early in the season to Mitch Williams.  Couldn't find a pic of him in 29 in the old uniform and figured one in the current uniform wouldn't be the same.)

 

 

 

[Aardvark]

Does this count with Mikel Bridges? He was 1 temporarily and then switched to 25

 

[Bomba Tomba]

Kyle Busch

 

Chase Elliott

 

 

Ryan Newman

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

Sticking with the Mets, because they are so easy:

 

Lee Mazzilli and Ron Darling 

 

 

 

 

 

[sky1324]

LaMelo Ball - began his career with #2, switch to #1 once Malik Monk left the team.

[M4One]

Pavel Bure originally wanted to wear 96 because 9/6/1991 was the date of his arrival to North America.  Pat Quinn told him no because it was a showboat number.  He changed it to 96 for the '95 season, only to go back to 10 a couple years later.

 

 

 

Ray Bourque started out with 7 with the Bruins, but doubled it up when they retired 7 for Phil Esposito.

 

 

[pepis21]

Lindsey Hunter in his first stint with Pistons wore #1:

But in second he switched to #10, because of Billups:

 

Speaking of Mr. Big Shot. In his first season with Nuggets he was wearing #7, because #1 belongs to J.R Smith. In his second season he switched to #1 while J.R switched to #5:

 

Big Ben Wallace used to wear #3 in Pistons, but when he returned to Detroit that number was taken by Rodney Stuckey, so he choose #6:

 

[dont care]

8 hours ago, Bomba Tomba said:

Kyle Busch

 

Chase Elliott

 

 

Ryan Newman

I don’t count these were they just run a partial schedule before their rookie year before getting their permanent number. It’s almost the same a spring training number before they officially make the team and get assigned their actual number. Now if you chose chase Elliott with the 24 before changing to the 9 that would fit.

[tBBP]

Had to make sure I wasn't Mandela-effecting first.. 

 

 

 

I know there's a story somewhere on why Anthony Edwards did this,  but still...

 

... And like @BBTV said, you'll find tons of  examples of this throughout the NFL—especially now since the league relaxed is jersey number rules (so we all can steer clear of those changes...they're way too obvious.)

 

Some of the more obscure changes, though...

 

 

 

IIRC, OJ Simpson's 36 never even made it out of the preseason. 

 

Speaking of 32s, this next one did make it out of the preseason...lasted for three years before the switch:

 

 

 

Ol' Jack Tatum.

 

While we're on players who started wearing 31, here's another one:

 

 

Dude switched to his more familiar 30 halfway through his rookie season (which may be one of few instances of an in-season number switch):

 

 

And lastly (for this round), there was this switch—I still don't know what led to this change:

 

 

 

I think Daunte Culpepper changed after his rookie season to 11.

 

(Not pictured: Randy Moss' rookie preseason number 18...switched to 84 when the regular season started.)

[BBTV]

Like my man said, there's far too many examples for a thread.  It would be easily 1,000 pages long.

 

Now if we put some guardrails around it:

 

1. Preseason to regular season don't count.

2. Rookie to 2nd (even maybe 3rd)-year don't count.

3. Mid-career changes count, and 2nd-stints count.

3a. Like my dawg said, with the NFL abolishing its number rules, there's been an insane amount of switches.  We all know who the good players are that switched and that was covered ad nauseam.

3.b "Blood shirts" shouldn't count, as they've also been covered ad nauseam in the other thread, same as "lost" jerseys.  MJ wore 12 (I think) because of one or the other.

4. Let's limit it to players that most people should know.  Nobody cares that Dick Asswipe changed his number from 96 to 69 in his 4th season with the Tuscaloosa Turds.

 

[BBTV]

Speaking of 3b and MJ, probably the most famous example of them all (I think this should count, as it was intended to be a permanent switch.)

 

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

In commemmoration of the sad event of the A's last games in Oakland, here are some A's players.

 

Reggie Jackson

 

(The A's retired his original number.)

 

 

Rickey Henderson 

 

(The A's retired his second number.)

 

 

Vida Blue

 

 

 

Gene Tenace

 

 

 

 

 

[DCarp1231]

Ezekiel Elliott 21 (1st stint) to 15 (2nd stint)

 

Jamison Crowder 80 (1st stint) to 83 (2nd stint)

 

Mike Napoli 25 (1st & 2nd stints) to 5 (3rd stint)

[johnnysama]

20 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

A great topic!

 

I thought of several with the Yankees (Rick Cerone 10, 11, 6; Bobby Murcer 1, 2; Oscar Gamble 17, 23; Jack Clark 6, 21, 33; Mike Pagliarulo 6, 13), but it's very hard to find pictures showing the uniform numbers. 

 

Turning to the Mets, the first ones that come to mind are Felix Millan and Rusty Staub.

 

 

 

 

Lee Mazzilli wore #16 in his first Mets stint (1976-81), then when he returned in time for the Mets' 1986 World Series run (staying until 1989), he wore #13.