No. 21 forever belongs to The Warrior.
The New York Yankees announced Tuesday morning that the team will retire No. 21 for Paul O’Neill on Sunday, August 21, prior to the Yankees-Blue Jays game. All fans in attendance will receive a commemorative Paul O’Neill Day game ticket as well.
O’Neill already has a plaque in Monument Park, dedicated in 2014, and now becomes the 23rd Yankees player or manager to have their number retired (over 22 numbers, with 8 retired twice for Bill Dickey and Yogi Berra).
He is also the seventh member of the Yankees’ four-time World Champions from the late-1990s to have his number retired, eighth if you want to include Don Mattingly as part of that run for the Yankees’ 1995 Wild Card appearance.
Derek Jeter, whose number was retired on May 14, 2017, is the most recent to earn that honor.
O’Neill, who is now a Yankees analyst for YES Network, spent nine of his 17 MLB seasons with the Yankees, batting .303 with 185 homers, 858 RBI, a .377 on-base percentage and .869 OPS in pinstripes. He was a four-time World Champion and four-time All-Star in those nine years, and won the AL batting title in the strike-shortened 1994 season with a .359 average.
He is, however, somewhat infamously not the last Yankee to wear No. 21. The number was out of circulation from his retirement after the 2001 season until 2008, when it was issued first to Morgan Ensberg during Spring Training – Ensberg switched to No. 11 for Opening Day – and then to LaTroy Hawkins, who switched from 22 to 21 when Ensberg moved to 11.
O’Neill had no issue with it, but fan backlash was so strong to anyone wearing The Warrior’s number that, even after it was explained Hawkins wanted No. 21 to honor Roberto Clemente, he switched back to 22 in mid-April after a conversation with Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera.
“I figure if it's important enough for Jeter and Mariano and some other veterans to ask me about it, it's not worth it to keep wearing the number," Hawkins told the AP at the time.
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No. 21 hasn’t been worn since, and now, a little more than 14 years later, it will go out of circulation for good.
Follow Lou DiPietro on Twitter: @LouDiPietroWFAN
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