Sunday, June 26, marks an obscure but significant baseball anniversary.

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One hundred years ago on that date (June 26, 1916), the Indians made Major League Baseball history at Cleveland’s Dunn Field by becoming the first big league club to wear numbers on their uniforms.

The move was met with skepticism by many observers, including The Sporting News, which theorized that it was but a passing novelty.

These predictions seemed prescient, for the Indians’ experiment was a fleeting one. The club continued to sport numbers on the left sleeves of their home uniforms for a few more weeks during the 1916 season, then moved the digits to the right sleeves for some more games the following year before abandoning digits altogether.

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As odd as it might sound today, putting numbers on Major League uniforms was a hotly contested topic during the first two decades of the 20th century. Players and owners were unified in their opposition to uniform numbers. Players felt that it was not a look becoming of a professional athlete. Conservative owners saw nothing but expenses and headaches.

On the other hand, placing digits on players was seen as a fan-friendly initiative by a group of forward-thinking and influential big-city columnists and editors.

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The writers’ cynicism toward team owners on this issue was often deliciously snarky.

Thomas S. Rice, writing in the Jan. 8, 1923, Brooklyn Eagle, summed up things by writing “(a)nd there we leave it to the magnates to mull over for 40 years, or possibly 70 years. Then, perhaps, they will wake up to the extent that they will sew on the sleeves of the athletes numerals so small that they could not be read halfway across the diamond by a professional sharpshooter, much less by a paying spectator back in the stands.”

Following Cleveland’s brief experiment, the next MLB team to include numbers on uniforms was the St. Louis Cardinals in 1923. These numbers also were placed on the uniform sleeves, six inches in height. And, like the Indians foray into numbering uniforms, St. Louis’ efforts were short-lived. Cardinals manager Branch Rickey later wrote “(r)idicule followed throughout the country, presswise and otherwise.” He said that his players were “subjected to field criticism from the stands and especially from opposing players.” Finally, according to Rickey, the numbers were removed due to what he called “continuing embarrassment to the players.”

Great innovations, however, cannot be held down forever.

In January 1929, the defending World Series champion New York Yankees announced that they would be wearing numbers on the backs of their uniforms. The Indians soon followed suit, and the following May, the New York Times predicted “all clubs will come to it in time.” And so they did, within a span of only a few short years.

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A century after having been introduced, uniform numbers are a familiar sight on MLB diamonds. The Yankees, uniform pioneers, have honored 21 former managers and players by retiring their numbers. While we have no idea what the next century will bring, it's probably safe to assume that the Yankees will at some point need to employ three-digit uniform numbers, thus making uniform history yet again.