Some clubs have a jersey number on their roster that no one can wear. It is a retired number. The club leaves the number empty forever to honor the player who wore it, and it is practically the highest honor a pro player can receive.
There are no official requirements for retiring a number, because it is an honor the club decides on. But looking at real cases, the common ground is clear.
Only a few players a generation have all three. That is why, even across the whole Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), retired numbers are few and far between, and their scarcity is what gives them weight.
A jersey number is just a number at first. As a rookie, a player might get whatever number is left, or inherit one from a veteran who left. What turns that number into a symbol is time: wearing one uniform with the same number for more than ten years, seeing jerseys with that number fill the stands, and watching young players want to wear it. The moment at a number retirement ceremony when a retired player watches his number go up over the field is one of the most complete stories pro baseball can tell.
A retired number is not only an honor. For the club, it is a real cost, one fewer number it can use, which is all the more reason not to hand it out lightly. Some players might also turn the honor down, hoping a younger player will wear the number and write an even bigger history, or feeling the weight of having their baseball frozen in place. Whether it is more beautiful to leave a number empty or to pass it on is a question each player answers differently. What is certain is that being offered the choice at all is the final verdict on a whole career.
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