Anyone who followed the Giants for the last 15 years -- and even some fans who didn't -- knew that the man in jersey No. 25 was outfielder Barry Bonds.

A generation earlier, the same kind of recognition was accorded No. 24. That belonged to Willie Mays, and if you didn't know that, you didn't know baseball.

But here are a few questions for the Giants fans of today. Take this test next time you visit AT&T Park.

Who wears jersey No. 16?

How about No. 21?

Or No. 35?

Give up?

You might look for their names on the backs of their jerseys, except that ... well, the Giants don't put names on their home jerseys.

Which poses another question: Why?

Players' names are on display when the Giants play on the road. You know, at Dodger Stadium. Or Wrigley Field. Or Shea.

So if you fly to Los Angeles or Chicago or New York to see the Giants, you'll learn that No. 16 is pitcher Pat Misch, 21 is John Bowker and 35 Rich Aurilia.

Only when the team is at home does it keep players' identities secret.

Now, in the instance of Barry Zito, maybe that's a good idea. For sure, it was a good idea with Armando Benitez.

Still, if a baseball team's goal is to deliver a fan-friendly experience, why make it difficult for Joe Spectator to know who's batting, pitching or fielding? Unless, as a cynic might suggest, the goal is to drive up program sales.

The NFL dealt with this jersey business in 1973 when Pete Rozelle mandated that all uniforms include

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players' names.

The NBA is no different. The league's operations manual stipulates that every jersey is identified by number and name, home and away.

Only Major League Baseball fails to recognize the value in uniformly making it easy for fans to identify the players in the game.

Big-league baseball teams all go their own way on jerseys. The Red Sox and Yankees jerseys are like the Giants -- nameless when playing at home. Baseball folks will tell you that this "retro" look is a reminder of the way the game once was. Well, teams used to travel by train, too. Retro isn't always the way to go.

We're guessing that fans in the stands would rather know which players they're watching than what uniforms looked like years go.

But major league execs don't seem the least bit troubled by this. They've never found time to make clubs conform to a uniform standard, so to speak.

They probably have been too busy stamping out steroids.

Contact Tom Barnidge at tbarnidge@bayareanewsgroup.com

OTHER VIEWS

Just who do you believe?

You can't trust any of them.

Matt Walsh, Roger Goodell and the Patriots: They're all lying, at best, disingenuous, at least.

Walsh, the Brian McNamee of the NFL, on Tuesday slunk into the offices of two men with better things to do in an effort to quash Spygate and its most insidious development: that the Pats taped a Rams walkthrough before they beat St. Louis in Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002.

Walsh was armed with evidence he never should have had after his stint as a low-level Patriots video gofer and scout -- illegal, grainy videotapes he took of opponents flashing signals during games.

Why did he keep the tapes? As resume material, Walsh said, according to Roger Goodell, NFL commissioner, who Tuesday interviewed Walsh for more than three hours in his New York offices.

Resume material?

Riiight.

Because, of course, most prospective employers want to see how well you'll cheat for them -- and they'll be delighted that you retain the damning evidence of their cheating.

-- Marcus Hayes, Philadelphia Daily News

What did Specter accomplish exactly?

Bad news, Eagles fans. Sen. Arlen Specter forgot to ask.

The good senator spent three hours Tuesday talking with Matt Walsh, the Rose Mary Woods of the NFL's Spygate scandal, and never got around to his original question about the whole kerfuffle.

Did the Patriots cheat the Eagles out of their rightful Super Bowl win Feb. 6, 2005?

"I didn't ask him that. We covered a lot of ground, but we didn't cover all the ground," Specter said Wednesday. "There are a lot of questions that I didn't get to."

For goodness' sake, what do we send these people to Congress for, anyway?

The Pennsylvania Republican did learn a lot during his session with the young man who helped the Patriots steal the defensive signals of opponents for several seasons, and he presented some of his findings at a news conference in the Capitol building on Wednesday.

He also intended to read a prepared statement on the floor of the Senate regarding his latest unearthing of facts crucial to the public well-being. The rest of the Senate was otherwise occupied, however, engaging in what Specter termed a "food fight" over something or other...

Oh, well. No one said rooting out corruption and protecting democracy would be easy.

-- Bob Ford, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Is the NFL setting a bad example?

So, let me see if I have this right. The reason Sen. Arlen Specter refuses to let Spygate die has nothing to do with the Eagles' three-point loss to the Patriots in Super Bowl XXXIX, or that pile of money that the NFL's archenemy, Comcast, contributed to his last re-election campaign, or the fact that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell won't get down on bended knee and kiss his senatorial ring or anything else of Specter's.

No, the real reason Specter won't let it go is because of little Johnny and all of the little Johnnys in this country, who, even as we speak, are seriously considering bringing cheat sheets with them to their next fourth-grade math quiz.

"People raise a question why (I want to) look into this," the Pennsylvania Republican said. "Well, the sports leagues, including the NFL, have a very preferred status in our society. They have an antitrust exemption. And that antitrust exemption is worth its weight in wildcats. Without the antitrust exemption, they wouldn't be able to pool their revenues and control the schedule.

"They are enormous role models for everybody. But if you can cheat in the NFL, you can cheat in college and you can cheat in high school. You can cheat on your grade-school math test. There's no limit as to what you can do."

-- Paul Domowitch, Philadelphia Daily News

MIX AND MATCH

Match these major league managers with their teams:

1. Manny Acta

2. Dave Trembley

3. John Russell

4. Eric Wedge

5. Fredi Gonzalez

6. Trey Hillman

(a) Pirates

(b) Royals

(c) Nationals

(d) Indians

(e) Orioles

(f) Marlins

1. (c)

2. (d)

3. (a)

4. (d)

5. (f)

6. (b)

BELIEVE IT OR NOT

  • From the time an NBA team tips off for the first time in the preseason until it appears in Game 7 of an NBA championship series, it could play as many 118 games across seven months.

    RANDOM FACTS

  • Sergio Garcia's $1.7 million payoff for winning the Players Championship last week boosted him from 110th to seventh among the PGA Tour's leading money winners.

  • The 103 regular-season victories that the 1993 Giants posted in Peter Magowan's first season as managing general partner were the high-water mark during his 15-plus years at the helm.

  • Three horses captured racing's Triple Crown in the 1970s -- Secretariat ('73), Seattle Slew ('77) and Affirmed ('78) -- but none has done so since.

    OVERHEARD

    "Even if you make it down to hell, you can always make it back. I know. I've been there."

    -- Disgraced figure skater Tonya Harding, talking about her life while promoting her new book, "The Tonya Tapes"

    THIS DATE IN HISTORY

  • 1975: Rick Barry hits a jumper with 38 seconds remaining to put Game 1 of the NBA Finals out of reach as Golden State defeats Washington 101-95. The Warriors go on to sweep the Bullets 4-0 to take the title.