A team can honor the greatness of a player in several ways, but the single most cherished honor is for the organization to retire the player's number.
That goes beyond simply saying that a player was great. It says that a player is special to a franchise, so special that no matter what other future players might achieve, they can only equal, never surpass, a past player’s legacy of importance.
It’s an arbitrary decision – one that is not necessarily defined by longevity, exclusivity or even championships.
On Sunday, the New York Yankees made an obvious decision to retire the No.