What is meant by retiring number or jersey?

Like in football, awhile ago there were some controversy about retiring Jerry Rice NFL legendary receiver number before Isaac Bruce takes up the number San Francisco 49ers. Does that mean he can't take that number (number 80)? Wait.... so if they can't wear the number, how many numbers are they allowed to retire, next thing you know nobody can wear any numbers. wide receivers will be wearing numbers 101, and 140 because, 99 numbers (1-99) has been retired?

Public Comments

1. no other player who goes to that team can wear that specific number on that team (4 on the packers). the 49ers didn't officially retire that number so its open for anyone to wear it
2. when a number is retired, that means that no one else in that franchise (in your example the 49ers) can ever wear that number ever again. it is a sign of respect for someone who has made big contributions to the franchise on the field
3. no one else can EVER use that number plz vote me at best . lol
4. yep noone can use the #80, this is beacuse he was so amazing
5. If a number is retired, no player on that team can use it. Seatle actually retired the number 12 since their fans are so loud, it's like a 12th man on Defense. Now if you want to play for the Seahawks, you can't be number 12. Add:Teams don't retire all that many numbers. The closest to that has to be the Yankees and they aren't even close. They won't have any single didget numbers when Jeter and Torre are retired though which they will be. If they retire too many though and run out, I guess they would have to use three didget numbers but that won't happen. Teams would stop retiring once they run out of numbers.
6. The number is only retired for that team. For example Jim Brown wore #32, and the Browns did retire that number. No player for the Browns can wear 32, but any body on any of the other 31 teams can, unless 32 was retired by that team. Jim Brown being #32 and Walter Payton being #34 is why these are popular numbers for RBs. Same goes for 80 and WR.
7. If a number is retired by a Franchise then no other player is allowed to wear that number for that Franchise. The one thing I wanted to add that most seem to be leaving out is that a number can, although rarely is, be "unretired". Some examples include cases like Micheal Jordon who had to wear 43 for a few games until they got back to Chicago and unretired his number. Now in football there have also been a few cases where the person who had their number retired has allowed it to be unretired so that another player to the franchise could use it.
8. Retiring someone's number means that that specific number can never be used in that franchise for another player. Usually it's done to honor a prominent player who's stuck to an organization and established his name as one of the best players to play the game.
9. A retired number only applies to one specific team. For example, the Dolphins retired #13 (Dan Marino's number), so no one else who plays for the Dolphins can ever wear #13. But #13 can still be used by the other teams in the NFL. A retired number is not that frequent of an occurence that a team would run the risk of running out of numbers. I believe the only time a number has been retired for a whole league is #42 in Major League Baseball (in honor of Jackie Robinson).
10. Just wanted to correct sgoldper.... He wore number 45 when he come back. The same jersey number he wore in baseball. He was fined 10,000 dollars a game when he decide to go back to number 23. And then they unretired it.