Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2019 October 27

= October 27 =

Players 0 and 00 in sports
The rules of the Canadian Football League explicitly mention both 0 and 00 as permissible player numbers (Rule 6, Section 4, Article 4: "Eligible receivers will wear numbers from 0–49 and 70–00"). In practice, as far as I am aware this year's Toronto Argonauts are the first team to actually use numbers 0 and 00 (that's Chandler Worthy) for players at the same time.

Are there leagues of American football where both player numbers 0 and 00 are allowed and are used on the same team? Are these numbers used at all in other sports, where teams generally have fewer players? If so, are there other examples of players 0 and 00 on the same team? Just curious. --76.69.116.4 (talk) 22:34, 27 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Tangentially related, we have both on some roulette wheels, (and a few even have a triple zero): roulette. SinisterLefty (talk) 22:48, 27 October 2019 (UTC)


 * According to Number (sports), 0 and 00 are no longer allowed in the NFL. It's allowed in Major League Baseball. Adam Ottavino, who was pitching in postseason games this year for the Yankees, was wearing 0. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:22, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
 * NBA and NCAA Basketball allows either 0 or 00 to be used by a team, but not both; officially all single digit numbers are recorded as "0X" in the scorebook (thus 5 is recorded as "05") so by official scorekeeping rules, 0 and 00 are the same number. The NHL no longer allows 0 or 00, but did as recently as the 1980s.  See here for more information on those and other sports.  There have been a few association football (soccer) players to wear 0, at least one is mentioned here.  -- Jayron 32 12:03, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Bugs and especially Jayron. My curiosity is satisfied.  I particularly like the variety of reasons players had for choosing those numbers.  If I may ramble for a bit, I remember the days when player 1 on an NHL team was the main goalie, player 30 was the backup goalie, and everyone else had numbers in between,  with defensemen usually taking the lower numbers.  The traditional highest number 30 began to change when teams started carrying a third goalie, who often got number 31, or in at least one case 35.  Later, higher numbers up to 99 became common. --76.69.116.4 (talk) 18:48, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Except for the NBA, Basketball has the most restrictive uniform numbering system. Because refs communicate with scorekeepers using hand signals, all uniform numbers need to have digits 5 or less (0-5, thus 43 and 51 are legal, but 7 or 99 are not) so the ref can signal fouls and the like to the scorekeeper.  The ref holds up the tens digit with their right hand and the ones digit with their left, which is why the numbering system is as it is.  In the NBA, the refs have microphones, usually, so that obviates the need for hand signals.  -- Jayron 32 11:46, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Fascinating. Thanks!  I am, of course, reminded of train set numbers on the London Underground, and squawk codes for airplanee flights, both of which use only the digits 0-7 because they are actually transmitted in binary, which octal is easily converted to.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.69.116.4 (talk) 06:28, 30 October 2019 (UTC)


 * If we want all other sports look at the 00 number of Buckshot Jones in NASCAR racing. Rmhermen (talk) 16:16, 30 October 2019 (UTC)