Before 1929, baseball players were just nameless pinstriped figures running around the diamond. Then the New York Yankees had a brilliantly simple idea: put numbers on the jerseys. But how would they decide who got what number?

The answer was so obvious it hurts. The Yankees assigned numbers based on where you batted in the lineup. Leadoff hitter Earle Combs got #1. Second batter Mark Koenig wore #2. And the Sultan of Swat himself, Babe Ruth, who batted third? He got #3.

The Lineup That Made History

On April 16, 1929, the Yankees trotted onto the field wearing their new numbered uniforms for the first time. The batting order read like a who's who of baseball royalty. Ruth wore his iconic #3, while his partner in crime Lou Gehrig—batting cleanup in the fourth spot—wore #4. Bob Meusel got #5, Tony Lazzeri claimed #6, and so on down the line.

It wasn't some grand marketing scheme or mystical significance. Just pure practicality. Fans in the upper decks could now figure out who was who without squinting at a scorecard.

When Simple Became Legendary

What started as batting-order bookkeeping became the foundation of baseball lore. Ruth's #3 would eventually become one of the most iconic jersey numbers in sports history—not because of numerology or superstition, but because of the absolute unit of a human who wore it.

The system worked beautifully until, well, it didn't. Players got traded, lineups shuffled, and rookies came up. Eventually the Yankees abandoned the batting-order method, but those original numbers stuck. Ruth kept his #3 through his final Yankees season in 1934, and the number was retired in 1948 alongside Gehrig's #4—the first uniform numbers ever retired in baseball.

Other teams saw the Yankees' innovation and scrambled to copy it. By the early 1930s, numbered jerseys spread across both leagues. But most teams ditched the batting-order approach almost immediately, assigning numbers based on roster position or player preference instead.

The Legacy Lives On

Today, players choose numbers for all kinds of reasons: childhood heroes, lucky digits, whatever's available in the clubhouse. But it all traces back to that 1929 Yankees lineup and a delightfully straightforward solution to a practical problem.

So yes, Babe Ruth wore No. 3 because he batted third. Sometimes the simplest explanation really is the right one. And sometimes that simple choice becomes immortal.

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