Your Name Here

I am not a shopper. To me, it’s a waste of time, and if I could hire a personal shopper – I would. I’m usually fine with whatever my wife suggests. However, I have always been super-picky when it comes to sports apparel. I have high standards that don’t really exist with anything else in my wardrobe. So when I heard about a new store opening in Independence that was said to have a ton of sports gear, I had to check it out for myself.

As I roamed through the racks of (pretty sweet) gear, I fount something in the Royals section that caught my eye – and brought to mind an issue that I’ve struggled with since I was a teenager.

It was an authentic Powder Blue Zack Greinke #23 jersey. They wanted $45 bucks for it.

Now, as I stood there weighing the pros and cons of spending money for the personalized jersey of a guy who doesn’t play for the team anymore, I got a bit flustered.

For one, an authentic jersey is an authentic jersey. Especially when it’s personalized. Also, I really like the Royals current uniform set. It really improved after it ditched the black & added the sleeves back a few years ago. The powder blue alternate isn’t necessarily my favorite of the three current jerseys, but it’s probably the one that I would buy if given a choice.

Zack Greinke was a good player for the Royals. A Cy Young award winner. His ups and downs in Kansas City helped to make him seem more relatable, but his talent set him apart. He was an interesting cat, but most fans in KC felt bad for the guy during a lot of his time here. He was talented, but didn’t get much help from the offenses that he played with. However, the way he bagged on this team last year earned him a one-way ticket to Milwaukee and no love lost from Royals fans.

Could we use him in the rotation right now? You know the answer to that question.

How do I explain wearing a Greinke jersey that I bought after he was gone? $45 is borderline too much money to spend for someone who is still playing & left the way he did. So what other options are there?

If ambitious, I could try to perform some surgery on the jersey. I could carefully remove the letters and try to find matching fabric at a craft store. After all, Danny Duffy is wearing #23 these days, and that would be kind of a cool jersey to have. That seems like a lot of work though, and probably not something I’m capable of pulling off.

Maybe I could turn it into a #23 Mark Gubicza jersey?

So, as my decision making process was coming to a close, I decided that I didn’t want to rock a brand new Zack Greinke jersey. This brings me to my roadblock.

For as much as I’ve always wanted one, I’ve never been able to pull the trigger on a personalized jersey.

I’ve always feared that after choosing my favorite player and spending $130 on a new personalized jersey, that player would get traded or do something horrible, which would render my precious jersey unwearable. I can still remember wanting a Doug Mientkiewicz jersey back in 2006. He played a total of 91 games in Kansas City.

What about that Justin Huber jersey that you bought? Or Rick Ankiel? Or Gary Gaetti? (actually, a Gary Gaetti Royals jersey would be kind of awesome) They all played for just a limited time in Kansas City. Now, I’m sure that none of those jerseys flew off the racks, but what would you do if you bought one of them? More than likely, it would end up in the back of your closet or in a box in your garage. If you wore it out in public, you run the risk of ending up on a website like straightcashhomey.net.

I am convinced that this is why t-shirt replica jerseys were created. The season starts, you pick your favorite player, and you wear the t-shirt until the guy leaves. Then you can just toss the shirt in the garbage & move on to the next player. It seems cheap and fancy-free, but it’s simple.

Sometimes I think that the best alternative is to get a personalized jersey with my own name on the back. But then, I get annoyed when I see people who do that. It confuses me. My mind tries to remember some name of a player that never existed.

So in the end, I am still jerseyless. It’s a tough situation, and one that I would love to overcome someday. Perhaps news of signing someone like Eric Hosmer or Alex Gordon to a long term deal would help me out. But even then, what if the player changes his number mid-career? (I’m looking at you Alex)

You know what? Maybe I’ll just go with BAT BOY.

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