For a couple of hours Tuesday we had some good ol' fashioned number drama in the world of the Red Sox.
It started late in the afternoon when the Twitter account Red Sox Stats surfaced a newsworthy item regarding one of the team's number alterations.
On the Red Sox official roster Martin Perez's number changed from 54 to 33 today, which he wore with the Rangers and Twins. If this sticks he'd be the first new Sox player to wear 33 since Varitek switched from 47 to 33 during the 1999 season.
— Red Sox Stats (@redsoxstats) February 16, 2021
While the news evidently didn't cross the radar of Varitek, his wife, Catherine, certainly took notice.
(Strong language alert)
It didn't take long for Perez to rectify the problem.
The gesture wasn't lost on Mrs. Varitek.
Update: It turns out the No. 33 was mistakenly assigned to Perez by the MLB.com web site.
Perez's history had been almost exclusively with No. 33 before the pitcher changed to No. 54 for his first season with the Red Sox in 2020.
