Dodgers: On Mark Sweeney's Birthday, Let's Talk About Him Giving Number 22 to Clayton Kershaw

In 2008, Mark Sweeney gave his number 22 to 20-year-old Clayton Kershaw because he knew Kershaw would wear it for the Dodgers for a "long, long time."

Our buddy Chad Simmons over at @dodger_cards on Twitter is a great follow if you like the Dodgers, baseball cards, and/or being reminded about former L.A. players on their birthdays.

One of those birthdays on Wednesday was Mark Sweeney, who played the last two seasons of his 14-year career in Los Angeles. In the last of those seasons, he was teammates with a 20-year-old fireballer named Clayton Kershaw, who came up to the big leagues in May 2008.

Happy 53rd birthday to Mark Sweeney. Sweeney played 14 years in the MLB with 7 different teams after debuting with the Cardinals in 1995. He spent his final 2 seasons with LA in 2007 and 2008, where he was the last Dodger player not named Clayton Kershaw to wear #22. pic.twitter.com/H63OlnTpJy

— Dodger Cards (@dodgers_cards) October 26, 2022

Kershaw made his major-league debut on May 25 wearing number 54. By the time he made his second start five days later, he was wearing the number he'd worn throughout his childhood in honor of his favorite player, former Giants and Rangers first baseman Will Clark.

As it turns out, Sweeney heard through the grapevine that Kershaw liked number 22, which was currently assigned to Sweeney. So he went to Mitch Poole, L.A.'s clubhouse manager, and orchestrated the number switch. As Sweeney said to the media at the time, Sweeney said that Kershaw was "going to be in this uniform for a long, long time. It's something important to do from an organizational standpoint."

Sweeney had actually worn number 21 in 2007 in honor of his former teammate Ken Caminiti, but he lost it to Esteban Loaiza in the offseason. As luck would have it, Loaiza was designated for assignment to make room for Kershaw on the roster, so the switch from 22 to 21 was a win/win.

In 2019, Sweeney told the story of the number switch at the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) Convention in a live recording of the SABRcast with Rob Neyer podcast. Below is a tweet with a transcript of Sweeney's comments, and you can listen to it here. (The relevant part starts around the 18:15 mark.)

According to Sweeney, he kind of had to force Mitch Poole to let him give Kershaw the number. pic.twitter.com/xaG2CdyEdR

— Jeff J. Snider (@snidog) October 26, 2022