i've mentioned before that i am a numbers guy. that includes jersey numbers, and when i was a kid just starting to follow baseball, i tried to figure out who wore number 6 on every team thanks to steve garvey being my favorite player. i also paid attention to other numbers, like 5, that were worn by a number of stars of the day. i also was partial to number 5 because that was the first number i wore in little league (an older kid had claimed 6) as it was the number of jim lefebvre, my dad's favorite position player.
anyway, i am often taken with cards or sets that deal with uniform numbers (retired numbers in particular), and so was pleased to find a few cards tucked away in a monster box recently. these three cards come from 2003 fleer flair greats, and picture johnny bench
all true greats of the game who wore number 5.
a few years ago, i wrote a post about how my thinking of number 5 was changing with the emergence of corey seager, but to be honest, i never really gave up lefebvre as the first 5 i thought of. with seager's departure, i am guessing that freddie freeman will take over number 5 for the dodgers. it was quite a coincidence, then, that i pulled this 2022 topps commemorative "relic"
from a pack on the day that he signed with the club. in terms of acquisitions, i see freeman as adrian gonzalez 2.0 which is not a bad thing. i would guess that this means max muncy can dh full time, and an infield of freeman, taylor, turner and turner is pretty decent.
of course, the first dodger number 5 that i knew of was the late johnny oates. he wore that number as a member of the 1977 and 1978 dodgers - the team of my youth - and so holds a special place in my fandom. speaking of oates, i found some more photos from camera day at dodger stadium in 1978. i had included a couple that we took in an earlier post about that day, but my dad had since sent a few more, including mr. oates:
back to the main topic of this post - here's to another great number 5 on the dodgers!