On April 15, 1997, in recognition of the 50 anniversary of Jackie Robinson's debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig retired Robinson's number 42 during a 35-minute ceremony at New York's Shea Stadium. While 11 major leaguers, including Mariano Rivera, Mo Vaughn, Butch Huskey, and Jose "It's Lima Time" Lima, took the field later that night with "42" stitched on their jerseys, only one donned the number for the first time.
Two thousand miles away, in Arlington, 5-11 Marc Sagmoen, a former standout at the University of Nebraska, made his major league debut for the third-place Rangers in an otherwise meaningless game against the Chicago White Sox. Like Robinson, Sagmoen goes hitless in his first game but one-ups the baseball legend when he recorded his first RBI in the bottom of the 6th with a bases-loaded walk against ChiSox hurler James Baldwin. Two days later, on April 17, Sagmoen recorded his first hit in the show, an inside-the-park home run off Kansas City's titular ace, Tim Belcher. Sagmoen hung around for another 19 games, compiling an uninspiring career .140 batting average, before playing out his professional career in the minors. Sagmoen's claim to fame, though, remains: he was the last major leaguer to be issued No. 42 as his official uniform number.
