Joe Kelly wore number 17 during his time with the Dodgers from 2019 to 2021 and then again when he returned to Los Angeles this past season. Kelly has become a bit of a fan favorite in Los Angeles and there’s even a mural painted of his iconic pouty face featuring him wearing that number 17 jersey.
However, all good things must come to an end. Kelly relinquished his jersey number to superstar free-agent signing Shohei Ohtani this offseason in exchange for a Porsche. Kelly will now be wearing number 99 for the Dodgers.
Kelly joined Rob Bradford on the Audacy original podcast “Baseball Isn’t Boring” and recalled how Blink 182’s Mark Hoppus trolled him after the number switch this offseason.
“My good friend Mark, Mark Hoppus – for anyone who doesn’t know music, Blink 182 – sent me a photo – I think he was kind of stunting on me with his home gym – sent me a photo of him working out,” Kelly said (11:30 in player above). “And, in all fairness, he said he didn’t buy it, his wife bought it, but he was kind of sentimental in his text, he said ‘You’ll always be the real number 17 in my heart, to me,” and he sent me a photo of him working out in his gym with a little Ohtani.”
You can see that picture Hoppus sent Kelly here.
Kelly is going to make sure Hoppus gets a new #99 shirt to go along with his Ohtani one.
“I’ll send you a #99 Kelly, but the problem is I’m going to have to go to like some kind of mall and go to the booth down in the middle where they’ll use their Cricut and then just kind of melt the number on,” he continued. “So I’m going to go buy a Dodger shirt and be like ‘Hey, can you put 99 Kelly on this?’ Because obviously they don’t sell those in stores.”
Kelly wore 58 with the Cardinals and 56 in Boston before switching to 17 in Los Angeles and with the White Sox. He’ll now be number 99 in your Dodgers programs.
“It’s a little sad,” Kelly said. “It’s a new chapter, you know what I mean?”