We've passed the off-season trade/free agency flurry for pro basketball and hockey. Unfortunately, there are always losers from such transactions beyond any teams who see quality players vanish. Specifically, the poor fans who have sunk income into now-obsolete custom jerseys featuring the departed competitors' names find themselves shafted. But that won't stop cheering zealots from replacing the clothing with similar items featuring different names. One of the clearest demarcations between a casual sports follower and hardcore nut is the difference between a logo t-shirt and a personalized official uniform item.
There is little comfort to be offered to adherents stuck with a sleeveless Phoenix Suns top that has Shaq's last name on the back, or an Alexei Kovalev Montreal Canadiens jersey. Those are two of the more prominent athletes to change franchises this summer, and items connected to their surnames and former teams are unsurprisingly trickling onto eBay.
The problem is that rabid followers simply must engage in this pricey ritual, one that usually involves at least 60 bucks worth of embroidery to an already-costly garment. The most religious backers form a remarkably strong allegiance to a numeral and family name they can't even see when they're wearing the item.
Identifying with a talented individual makes being a fan feel more like a tangible experience. While it's an outwardly simple act, donning a jersey strewn with a crest and a player's identifying information is as significant a gesture as wearing a band t-shirt or slapping a candidate's bumper sticker on your ride.
Who you pick shows who you are. Will you pledge yourself to a finesse-centric scorer or an unspectacular team player? Do you admire the Superman-type superstar or the roguish Batman-styled competitor who gets his hands dirty so his more famous teammate has room to excel? Are you fancy or gritty? Pick a side now.
It's a risky procedure. Some fans gamble by acquiring a, say, Doug Gilmour Buffalo Sabres jersey. Then, he plays 82 total regular-season games with the team before moving on. Now, the hypothetical sucker of an owner is left pondering years later whether he should even bother to try to hawk the outdated article of clothing at the aforementioned auction site. (Or, you could just message me -- a nostalgic yearning means I'm in the market for one.)
Such chanciness is just something with which fans have to cope. A favorite athlete leaving town is just another possible negative outcome on top of the infinite ways in which a sports season can go to shit. And it will never change. For some reason, no league or team officials have yet responded to my numerous requests to initiate a jersey amnesty program, where you can turn in a lamely archaic piece like a Drew Bledsoe Bills one (I'm an idiot) for a credit toward a new one which will in turn probably be useless in about three seasons.
But that's part of the game when it comes to following games. The entire enterprise of sports is a faith-based activity: fans have basically no control over what happens during contests, so they may as well extend their devotion one step further and attach themselves to a favorite player who could then disappear without so much as a puff of smoke.
And the clothing item can eventually rebound in value even if its sweaty namesake gets dealt or is caught running a meth lab staffed by unwell orphans. Just hold onto it for about a decade, and it'll turn into a throwback/retro item.
Fans can always go with a blank jersey. But that's like going to a casino's roulette table and asking if you can bet on both red and black. It takes nerve to risk affiliating yourself with a particular athlete, but the payoff is vicarious pride every time he does well.
The important thing is to never sully a jersey with too personal a designation. An unadorned one may be marginally tolerable for casual or cash-strapped fans, but what's unacceptable is tagging it with one's own last name -- a move that goes beyond emulation and straight into delusional territory. That's especially true for oh so hilarious fans that issue themselves the number 69. If it was funny in seventh grade, it will apparently always be so.
Self-naming constitutes bestowing an unearned honor upon oneself. There's a difference between being an Elvis fan and an Elvis impersonator; the former are only partly bat-shit crazy in their devotion. Instead, attach yourself to a mortal, and hope the chosen one will compete like a god.
On a personal note, I'd like to let the Buffalo Sabres know that there's no fucking way they should ever trade Paul Gaustad. I've got a jersey to keep current here!
Anthony Bialy is SG's no-jocks-required Sweaty Pursuits sports columnist. He follows sports religiously even though he's quite bad at them. He ran cross country and played rugby in college, and was horrid at both. He schedules his life around his favorite NHL team's games, and sadly lists his alma mater winning the NCAA basketball championship as his happiest moment. He likes other things besides sports, too, and requests a minute to think of them.
I live in Boston, home of some of the most fanatical sports fans in the US, and I still see jerseys with departed player names on them. Bledsoe jerseys are still popular at Patriots games, and when I go to Fenway Park there's always at least one person wearing Pedro Martinez or Nomar Garciaparra tshirts or jerseys. I personally have a Nomar shirt and I proudly wore it when he came back to Boston earlier this month with the Athletics. Sometimes it's a good thing to hang onto these jerseys, just for the nostalgia value, and maybe the player might show up with his new team to play.
Anthony_Bialy
Buffalo, NY
February 2009
JUL 24, 2009 10:06 AM