Names On Backs

I would like to share with you a personal story. When I was in 1st grade, 14 years, I was my favorite Mets player, Bobby Bonilla for Halloween. Despite the fact that our differing “skin tones” made it impossible for me to really look like Robert Martin Antonio Bonilla, an integral part of my costume was my Bobby Bonilla racing stripe style Mets jersey. As Bobby is still my all-time favorite baseball player, as he was my favorite then too, to wear the jersey with his name and number 25 made me feel proud. Then a couple years later, on July 28, 1995—a very dark day for yours truly—the Mets traded Bobby Bonilla to the Baltimore Orioles. I cried. Gone was my first ever favorite player. But also, gone was the ability to use—this predated the idea of retro jerseys—my Bobby Bonilla jersey. And thus a trend began, whenever I have ever bought a jersey with a player’s name on it, the player has left my favorite team in very short order.
My next favorite—but not my all-time favorite—Mets player was Lance Johnson. Still a bit skeptical about buying another jersey, I instead bought a Mets Lance Johnson T shirt with the #1 on the back. I bought that shirt so I could go to a game and wear it proudly. I bought the shirt that day, by the time I got to the game just hours later in fact, Lance Johnson had been traded. That was 1997.
Feeling burnt, I waited 4 more years before I ever bought another jersey. In 2001, as I was an Italian descent middle school 3rd baseman, I bought the jersey of the Italian descended Mets 3rd baseman, Robin Ventura in June of that year. That October would mark the ending of Robin Ventura’s Mets career. The curse followed me to hockey as well.
With hockey jerseys, for years I had only bought jerseys with no name or number on them. I had owned dozens of jersey over the years, but I did not buy my first islanders jersey with a name on it until September 2004. I bought the jersey of my all-time favorite hockey player, Adrian Aucoin during the Lockout as an investment in the better days that surely awaited me somewhere in the future. Although the NHL would return from the Lockout 13 months later, Adrian Aucoin was then a Blackhawk and never even played a game for the Islanders while I owned his jersey.
Next, just before the beginning of the first season after the Lockout, I bought the jersey of my formerly 2nd favorite—now 1st favorite—Islander, Oleg Kvasha. 5 months later, Kvasha was traded to Phoenix.
Whew I have been burnt. Today, I wear a David Wright jersey to Mets games and a pre Reebok Edge Brendan Witt jersey to Islanders games. I cannot help but live in fear that those players will move on to new teams.
This week, I am not trying to tell you to NOT buy something. I love owning jerseys with players’ names on them and I in fact believe that they are a great investment and a great tool to be used to support your favorite team—or player. But I am advising you to be calculated before you buy a jersey.
What I am suggesting is buying a jersey that even if the player ever got traded or moved onto a new team in some other fashion, you would still feel comfortable wearing that jersey to a game. My Mike Piazza jersey that I still keep in my closet at home is an example. With this method, you can buy a jersey of a current player and even if the player were to move on, their once-held popularity was so high that it would never be seen as taboo to represent that player at their former team’s venue.
Or, if you are deadest on owning a jersey of one of your team’s current players, try to calculate which player is least likely ever to leave that team. For example, as Islanders goalie Rick DiPietro is in the 2nd year of a 15 year contract in which he receives a salary that most teams believe is too high for a goaltender of his quality, it is likely that DiPietro will not leave the Islanders until MY mid 30s and with that, buying a Rick DiPietro jersey can be regarded as a safe purchase. So could a David Wright or Derek Jeter jersey. Those players mean so much to their organizations, both on the field and off, that it really is unfathomable that they would ever leave their respective teams. Although in sports, the unfathomable often does come to fruition, there can be no sure thing and as I said if you are deadest on owning a jersey of one of your team’s current players, this I definitely the best way to go. Note: Buying a Kobe Bryant Lakers jersey may not currently be a good idea.
So really, you are free to do whatever you want here but please, for your own sake, think before you act and please be careful!