8 Teams; How Many Jersey #s?

Julio Franco has worn a variety of jersey numbers on his back. I remembered that he had worn several different numbers with the Braves during 2001-05, but couldn't remember them all. So I did some searching and found his page on the Baseball Almanac web site. Man, there is some cool stuff there. They have a record of all his jersey numbers!

Franco is currently wearing #14 for the Braves. This appears to be his favorite jersey number. As a rookie in 1982 he wore #15 with the Phillies. From 1983 to 1994 Franco wore #14 for the Indians, Rangers, and White Sox. When he returned to the bigs in 1996 for the Indians he wore #23. The switch was made because the Indians planned to retire the #14 in honor of the second African American Major Leaguer, Larry Doby.

In 1997, with the Brewers, Franco wore #25. Number 14 was worn by catcher Dave Nilsson. SI.com says, however, that Franco wore #14. Not sure what the real deal is here. Could have been a midseason switch by Nilsson.

In 1999, Julio had 1 AB with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. He wore #18.

When Atlanta rescued Julio from the Mexican League in 2001, he wore #28 and #4. Bernard Gilkey wore #23 with the Braves in '01 and Quilvio Veras wore #4. Julio took #28, then switched to #4 after the Braves sent Quilvio packing. Verteran Dave Martinez wore #14 that year.

One would think that Franco would have stuck with #4 throught '02, but he didn't. He wore it for a while, then switched to #23. He gave #4 to Matt Franco - Matt was promoted from AAA Richmond pretty early that season. He and Julio more or less platooned at 1B that season. It does not appear that anyone wore #14 for the Braves in 2002. (Note: Matt Franco is currently playing professional baseball in Japan for the Chiba Lotte Marines; the same team Julio Franco played for in 1995 and 1998.)

In 2003, Franco put on #14 and kept it through 2005.

It was a good thing that Franco kept #14, because Pete Orr broke in with the Braves in 2005 and wore the #4.

In '06, with the Mets, Franco wore #23. The Mets have the #14 of Gil Hodges retired, so that was not an option for Franco.

Franco continued to wear #23 for the Mets until he was let go earlier this month. Currently Franco is wearing a #14 Atlanta Braves jersey.

So, Franco has wore 7 different numbers on the back of his Major League jerseys (15, 14, 23, 25, 18, 28, 4).