SF Giants icon Brandon Crawford gives support to Justin Verlander for wearing No. 35

Future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander showed up in camp wearing No. 35 as he has done for nearly his entire career. Brandon Crawford, the last SF Giants player to don that jersey, offered his support to Verlander to have that number in 2025.

SF Giants icon Brandon Crawford gives support to Justin Verlander for wearing No. 35

Crawford expressed his support to this in a snippet shared by Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area:

As soon as Verlander signed, there were questions as to what number he would wear. He held off on committing to that, knowing that Crawford is a Giants icon and wore that number during his time with the club. Verlander wanted to get Crawford's approval before making a decision and it appears he did.

Crawford wore No. 35 for his entire 14-year major league career, 13 of which came with San Francisco. He won four Gold Glove Awards, appeared in three All-Star games, and helped the Giants win a World Series in 2012 and 2014. His legacy in San Francisco is etched is stone.

That said, there is typically a sense of unease among the fanbase when a new player wears the same number as a franchise icon like Crawford. A few years back, there was a rumor that Matt Moore would be switching to No. 55, which was the same number worn by Tim Lincecum. That was viewed unfavorably by many Giants fans, but it turned out to be a clerical error.

The Giants have had a traditional approach to retiring a player's number. If they were a future Hall of Famer or elected to the Hall of Fame, then they would retire their number. They have relaxed on that stance in recent years as both Barry Bonds and Will Clark have had their No. 25 and No. 22 retired, respectively.

The Giants have also put certain numbers out of circulation such as Lincecum's No. 55, Buster Posey's No. 28, or Madison Bumgarner's No. 40. Posey is the only one from that group who will eventually reach the Hall of Fame but it would be odd to see another player put on those uniforms.

At the end of the day, Verlander went through the proper channel to get his approval to wear No. 35. The Giants are not going to hand out that number to just anyone, but Verlander is one of the greatest pitchers in baseball history, so it is pretty easy to make an exception.