Go Figure: How's your White Sox uniform memory?

Any player's uniform number is an integral part of his or her identity - so much so that it may be the one data point that fans remember most.

In this week's "Go Figure" set of stumpers, how well do you recall the feats, or intriguing connections, of those who wore five White Sox numbers? (Next week, we will metaphorically go on the road - about 10 miles north - to test your historical knowledge of the digits displayed on the backs of Cubs.)

Q1. Let's start with a historical foundation: In what decade did numbers gain widespread use among Major League Baseball teams?

1910s, 1920s, 1930s.

Now, onto the numbers. From 0 (Oscar Gamble) to 99 (Manny Ramirez), with 76 numbers in between, we could have gone in virtually limitless directions. Even with only five numbers (1, 17, 19, 42 and 11 - yes, we are batting out of order), we cover plenty of ground.

Uniform No. 1 (29 players)

Q2. Name the two White Sox players who wore No. 1 for both the Sox and Cubs? (One had a nickname featuring the number.)

Q3. During a recent quarter-century span, two No. 1s have paced the American League in triples a combined six times. One is a recent World Series champion. Name them.

Uniform No. 17 (41 players)

Q4. This player wore #17 the longest (eight years) and had the unique distinction of his name and uniform, together, declaring his birthday. Who was it?

Q5. One of the shortest-tenured 17s in Sox annals (41 games) was also the only Hall of Famer to wear the number for the Sox. Can you identify this recently inducted slugger?

Uniform No. 19 (32 players)

In this era of COVID-19, let's acknowledge the numerical elephant in the room.

Q6. The 15th No. 19 was the most successful, earning selection to seven All-Star teams. A two-time 20-game winner, he led the AL in ERA one year, strikeouts in another, and racked up 211 wins overall. Twenty-six years after he was traded toward the end of his career, the White Sox retired his number. By then, an additional 17 players had worn the number. Who was it?

The 22nd No. 19, Ron Lolich, played in only two games for Chicago: A July 1971 doubleheader at Yankee Stadium. Despite his short sip of Sox coffee, he had an intriguing connection to three lefty pitchers described below.

Q7. This cousin, a longtime pitcher, led the American League in wins in 1971.

Qs 8, 9. In Lolich's first at bat, he smacked a double against this former Northern Illinois University pitcher, only to be thrown out trying to stretch it into a triple. Thereafter he was hitless in his next seven at bats, over the course of the doubleheader.

Later, amid much tabloid sensation, those two Yankee pitchers he faced married one another's wives. Can you name them?

Uniform No. 42 (18 players)

No major league players wear No. 42 anymore, in honor of Jackie Robinson, the first black player in league history. Before that decision in 1997, there had been 18 White Sox players who wore the number.

Q10. The eighth Sox player to wear the number pitched in one game for the Sox in 1975. Eighteen months earlier, he wore the same number as a starting forward for the NCAA champion North Carolina State Wolfpack. Four years later, he won a World Series game. Who was it?

Q11. The 13th Sox player with No. 42 on his back won the American League Rookie of the Year Award after setting a club rookie record for home runs. Who was it?

Uniform No. 11 (18 players)

Q12. Aside from the #42 set aside by all teams, the number of retired Sox numbers is the same as one of those numbers: 11, honoring Luis Aparicio. However, Aparicio requested that a fellow Venezuelan shortstop be allowed to wear the number during his two-year stint with the team. Who was it?

Answers

1. 1930s; 2. Lance "One Dog" Johnson and Kosuke Fukudome; 3. Adam Eaton (twice) and Lance Johnson (four years in a row, 1991-1994); 4. Carlos May; 5. Ken Griffey Jr.; 6. Billy Pierce; 7. Mickey Lolich; 8, 9. Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich; 10. Tim Stoddard; 11. Ron Kittle; 12. Omar Vizquel.

• Matt Baron, an Oak Park-based freelance writer, supplemented his baseball brainpower with Retrosheet.org and baseball-reference.com for some of this research.