Oops. Rogers Hornsby Immortalized in a Browns Uniform

Whoopsies. Recently on the broadcast they were showing the left field wall with images of players whose numbers have been retired. Leftmost on the wall, not represented by a number but instead an SL emblem, is Rogers Hornsby, pictured in a St. Louis (American League) Browns uniform! Check it.

So we went looking for that photo, and found out it was taken by famous baseball photographer George Burke. Here is the full photograph.

By our estimations, it looks like this was taken between the years of 1935 and 1937. Rajah played the first part of his career, 1915 through 1926, with the Cardinals before departing to other teams. He came back briefly in 1933, but then joined the American League Browns in the latter half of the 1933 season, where he played through 1937 and finished his career. This photograph, again, looks to be in the last few years of his career with the Brownies. Nice uniform! Nice photo! Not a Cardinal.

Another interesting tidbit about Rogers Hornsby, is that his “retired number” is only represented by an SL emblem instead of an actual number. Hornsby barely wore numbers in his time as a Cardinal, because we only experimented with numbers in 1923 and 1924, and fully added numbers as a team in 1932 and onward. This means that Hornsby did wear a number in three seasons as a Cardinal.

So what numbers did Hornsby wear as a Cardinal? In collaboration with excellent Cardinals researcher and historian, Jeff Scott at birdbats.com, we figured out that Hornsby wore two different numbers during 1923. The Cardinals wore a weekday home uniform that featured the Birds on the Bat, and a weekend Sunday home pinstriped uniform that featured a single bird on the chest. Jeff has identified based on newspapers and scorecards that Cardinals players in 1923 had one number for the Birds on the Bat uniform, and a different number for the single bird uniform. Hornsby wore #4 on his primary Birds on the Bat uniform, and #6 on his single bird pinstriped uniform.

When Hornsby returned to the Cardinals for the first half of 1933, he wore #4. And the Cardinals museum has a 1933 Hornsby jersey in their collection. Take a look, click images to enlarge.

#6 is already occupied by the greatest Cardinal, and #4 is soon to be cast in bronze in the coming years. And regardless of these two numbers, it would seem the organization believes Hornsby did not wear a number long enough to be associated with a number. So instead, he is shown with an SL emblem that was worn in 1917 and 1920, both as a sleeve emblem. The SL logo is accurate to something Hornsby wore as a Cardinal. But the left field wall photo does not accurately depict him as a Cardinal. Here are some photos of Hornsby in a Cardinals uniform.