Blue Jays: Bo Bichette and choosing a jersey number

Bo Bichette of the Blue Jays did an Instagram live session on Wednesday and answered some questions, including how he ended up wearing number 11.

A jersey number is one of those weird things in sports that doesn’t matter much to some folks, and REALLY matters to others.

On Wednesday, the Blue Jays’ young star Bo Bichette was answering questions on Instagram live, and one of them centred around his wearing number 11 on his jersey as a big leaguer. According to Bichette, he was given three choices when he arrived in Toronto, to wear the jersey he has now, number 19, or number 20.

For those of you who fall into the REALLY caring about jersey numbers category, you might recognize that 19 and 20 were previously worn by highly respected veterans in Jose Bautista and Josh Donaldson. Neither of those jerseys have been retired in Toronto (yet), but it’s a curious thing that those were the options that were presented to Bichette upon his arrival.

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Bichette talked about being aware of who those numbers had belonged to previously, and that it was a “Lose-lose” situation of sorts to begin with. That said, he also mentioned that by the end of the year “seeing fans rocking the number 11” that he decided to keep it.

He dropped several other interesting pieces of information, including that he has two teammates living with him at the moment, Forrest Wall and Santiago Espinal. The three of them are doing what they can to stay in shape while the league is on pause, and of course, playing a lot of video games to keep themselves entertained. In fact, Espinal and Wall were playing “Call of Duty” while Bichette was doing the Instagram live session.

Bichette also addressed MLB’s recently reported plan to get baseball back on the field, which would include all of the players being quarantined in Arizona and having the league there. The 21 year old mentioned that he would be okay with that plan of action as long as everyone was safe.

For Blue Jays fans that are starved for content, hearing Bichette talk about how he’s passing time at least provided some entertainment. As for his jersey number, it sounds like Bichette will be hanging on to number 11.