Cultural Impact
When the Osaka Tigers played their first season in 1936, jersey numbers were given out in alphabetical order. Wakabayashi was assigned number 4, but he refused to wear the number because it is considered unlucky in Japan. He was given the first available number instead, which was 18. His subsequent success in the professional leagues made it a custom for a Japanese team's ace pitcher to be given the number -for example, Daisuke Matsuzaka was given number 18 when he joined the Seibu Lions from high school.
Read more about this topic: Tadashi Wakabayashi
Famous quotes containing the words cultural and/or impact:
“All cultural change reduces itself to a difference of categories. All revolutions, whether in the sciences or world history, occur merely because spirit has changed its categories in order to understand and examine what belongs to it, in order to possess and grasp itself in a truer, deeper, more intimate and unified manner.”
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