Jersey Numbers
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50 free Jersey Numbers trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
A jersey number is the shortest biography in sports. A couple of digits can stand for a birthday, a family tribute, a superstition or a plain clerical accident, and supporters remember them long after the final whistle. This quiz works both ways. Some questions hand you the athlete and the story and ask you to guess the number; others hand you the number and the team and ask you to name the player. It ranges over basketball, American football, baseball, hockey and soccer, along with the rules and oddities behind retired numbers and numbering systems. It is built for sports fans who like a challenge, quiz hosts who need a ready-made round, and anyone who has ever argued about who wore a number best. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you leave with the story as well as the score.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Michael Jordan jersey number did the Miami Heat retire in 2003, even though he never played for them?
23
Miami raised No. 23 to its rafters in April 2003, days before Jordan played the final game of his career as a Washington Wizard.
Q 02Which number, worn by Jackie Robinson, did Major League Baseball retire across every team in 1997?
42
No. 42 made Robinson the first professional athlete in any sport to be honored league-wide. Since 2009, every MLB player has worn it each April 15, Jackie Robinson Day.
Q 03Which number did the NHL retire for every team in 2000 to honor Wayne Gretzky's record-breaking career?
99
No. 99 was retired league-wide at the 2000 NHL All-Star Game. Gretzky took it as a junior on his coach's suggestion, because a teammate already wore his first choice.
Q 04Which shirt number was the teenage Pelé assigned purely at random for the 1958 World Cup in Sweden?
10
No. 10 went to Pelé only because Brazil's federation forgot to send a numbers list, so a tournament official handed them out by chance. He made the shirt famous.
Q 05Which shirt number did Manchester United give Cristiano Ronaldo in 2003 after he asked for 28 instead?
7
No. 7 came with history: George Best, Eric Cantona and David Beckham had all worn it at United. Ronaldo had simply wanted to keep his old Sporting number.
Q 06Which number did Kobe Bryant switch to in 2006, matching the first one he wore in high school?
24
No. 24 covered the latter half of Bryant's Lakers career. In 2017 the team retired it together with his original number, a double honor for a single player.
Q 07Which Tom Brady jersey number did the New England Patriots retire, pairing it with a statue that many feet tall?
12
No. 12 was formally retired by owner Robert Kraft, who revealed at the same time that a statue exactly that tall in feet would stand at the Patriots Hall of Fame.
Q 08Why did Michael Jordan play a 1990 game in Orlando wearing a nameless spare jersey instead of his usual one?
It was stolen
It was stolen before a Valentine's Day game against the Magic, so the Bulls star took the floor in a spare shirt with no name on the back.
Q 09Which number did Babe Ruth wear when the 1929 New York Yankees handed them out by batting order?
3
No. 3 matched Ruth's place as the third hitter in the lineup. The Yankees added numbers so fans in their cavernous stadium could tell the players apart.
Q 10Which Boston Celtics legend's No. 6 was retired by every NBA team in 2022, a league first?
Bill Russell
Bill Russell won 11 championships with the Celtics, and the league-wide honor came 11 days after his death in 2022. Players already wearing the number were allowed to keep it.
Q 11Which New York Yankees great's No. 4 became the first number retired in Major League Baseball, in 1939?
Lou Gehrig
Lou Gehrig was honored at an Independence Day ceremony in 1939, soon after ALS forced him out of the lineup. No Yankee has worn the number since.
Q 12Which number has Sidney Crosby worn for the Pittsburgh Penguins as a tribute to his own birthdate?
87
No. 87 is shorthand for Crosby's birthdate in the summer of 1987. His 2007 contract played the same game, paying $8.7 million a year.
Q 13Which Pittsburgh Penguins star wore No. 66 and came out of retirement in 2000 as the team's owner?
Mario Lemieux
Mario Lemieux bought the bankrupt Penguins in 1999 by turning the unpaid salary they owed him into ownership, then returned to the ice a year later.
Q 21Which number did Peyton Manning wear for the Broncos only after its retired owner, Frank Tripucka, gave permission?
18
No. 18 had been retired in Denver for Tripucka, a former Broncos quarterback, who agreed to lend it out. Manning's old team, the Colts, has vowed never to reissue it.
Q 22Which shirt number did Johan Cruyff make famous after 1970, when starters still wore 1 to 11?
14
No. 14 was an accident: Cruyff came back from injury to find an Ajax teammate using his usual shirt, and he kept the spare for the rest of his time at the club. Ajax retired it in 2007.
Q 23Which number has Jaromír Jágr worn throughout his hockey career in honor of Czechoslovakia's Prague Spring?
68
No. 68 marks 1968, the year of the Prague Spring and the year Jágr's grandfather died in prison. The New Jersey Devils waived a team ban on high numbers to let him keep it.
Q 14Which number did the Yankees retire for Derek Jeter in 2017, using up the last of their numbers from 1 to 9?
2
No. 2 was the last single digit standing, and Jeter wore it for his entire Yankees career. The club has retired more numbers than any other Major League team.
Q 15Which forward chose No. 30 at Paris Saint-Germain because he had worn it on his senior Barcelona debut?
Lionel Messi
Lionel Messi moved to Paris in 2021 after spending his whole senior career at Barcelona, and went back to the number he had worn as a teenage newcomer.
Q 16Which number did Shaquille O'Neal take with the Lakers because his Orlando Magic number was already retired there?
34
No. 34 doubled as a salute to O'Neal's stepfather, who had worn it while serving in the Army. The Lakers retired it for the big center in 2013.
Q 17Which playmaker's shirt did Napoli retire in 2000 after he led the club to its first Serie A title?
Diego Maradona
Diego Maradona won the league with Napoli in 1987 and again in 1990. When he later suggested forward Ezequiel Lavezzi should wear it, a newspaper poll of fans chose to keep it retired.
Q 18Which rebounding specialist wore No. 91 for the Chicago Bulls after being refused his old Detroit Pistons number?
Dennis Rodman
Dennis Rodman wanted his Pistons number, but Chicago had already retired it for Bob Love, and the NBA would not let him wear its digits flipped either.
Q 19Which NBA superstar gave up No. 6 in 2023 as a tribute, though league rules let him keep wearing it?
LeBron James
LeBron James was covered by a grandfather clause when the league retired the number in 2022, yet he switched for the next season out of respect.
Q 20Which singer-songwriter in 2006 became the first person outside sports given a retired number at Madison Square Garden?
Billy Joel
Billy Joel earned the banner with a run of sold-out shows at the arena in 2006, breaking a venue record that Bruce Springsteen had set in 2000.
Q 24Which number did Hank Aaron wear, matching his home run total in four different seasons?
44
No. 44 kept turning up for Aaron: Al Downing, the Dodgers pitcher who served up his record-breaking 715th home run, happened to wear it as well.
Q 25Which number did Jerry Rice adopt with the 49ers in honor of his idol, Seahawks receiver Steve Largent?
80
No. 80 replaced the number Rice wore in college, which a 49ers teammate already had. Late in his career he wore Largent's own retired jersey in Seattle.
Q 26Which Washington Wizards star wore No. 0 for the minutes experts predicted he would play in college?
Gilbert Arenas
Gilbert Arenas chose No. 0 as his answer to experts who expected him to sit on the bench at Arizona. With the Wizards it earned him the nickname Agent Zero.
Q 27Which number did Kevin Durant wear with the Thunder and Warriors, honoring a youth coach killed at that age?
35
No. 35 honors Charles Craig, the AAU coach who guided a young Durant and was murdered at that age. The Texas Longhorns later retired the number for Durant.
Q 28Which jersey number links NBA greats Larry Bird, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Patrick Ewing?
33
No. 33 was retired for each of them. Abdul-Jabbar chose it as a boy in tribute to his favorite football player, New York Giants fullback Mel Triplett.
Q 29Which Iowa guard's No. 22 was retired in 2025 after she became NCAA Division I's all-time leading scorer?
Caitlin Clark
Caitlin Clark passed Pete Maravich's long-standing mark in her final regular-season game, a record that covers men's and women's players alike.
Q 30Which Dodgers star gave a teammate's wife a Porsche after her husband handed over No. 17?
Shohei Ohtani
Shohei Ohtani had worn the number for his whole MLB career with the Angels. Reliever Joe Kelly's wife Ashley publicly offered it up to help lure him to Los Angeles.