Constable: Champs rule, but fans still wear has-been jerseys
bconstable@dailyherald.com
You can't spill a $10 Corona beer in the bleachers at Wrigley Field without soiling somebody's $134 Kris Bryant jersey. In the giddy aftermath of the Chicago Cubs' transformation from lovable losers to World Series Champs, fans can't get enough of these new Cubs.
Among the top-selling jerseys in Major League Baseball, Cubs players occupy four of the top five spots, with Bryant's No. 17 the best-selling jersey, while his Bryzzo Souvenir Company partner Anthony Rizzo's No. 44 holds down the second spot.
The jersey of Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw serves as sort of a baseball palate cleanser before young Cubs Javier Baez (jersey No. 5) and Kyle Schwarber (No. 12) close out the top five.
But there are exceptions. Three Loyola Academy buddies sitting in the grandstand behind the Cubs dugout during a recent game wear shirts touting three outfielders who are no longer with the team.
"I thought the way he spelled his name was funny," Isaac Altenberg, 17, says in explaining why he got his Kosuke Fukudome shirt as a fourth-grader. But he isn't about to diminish the career of the Japanese player, who made the 2008 All-Star team in his first year with the Cubs but never lived up to the hype. (Fukudome just turned 40 on Wednesday and is hitting .297 for Japan's Hanshin Tigers, a franchise with a disappointing history, great fans and an ivy-covered exterior.)
"He's one of the top 10 Cubs of all time," says Altenberg, whose jersey collection has soft spots for other Cubs who showed promise but couldn't lead the Cubs to glory. "I've got a Darwin Barney, a Carlos Zambrano and a Starlin Castro."
Chris Betz, 17, of Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood, says he didn't want to spend $219 for a gold Rizzo jersey, so he wears an old Sammy Sosa No. 21. "He used to be a really great ballplayer," Betz says, dismissing the controversy about Sosa's success during the steroid era. "I liked him in first grade."
Barely out of date in his Jorge Soler No. 68 jersey from last season, Clark Winkler, 17, of Evanston never thought he'd regret his jersey choice. "Not at the time," says Winkler, who got in a few good wears before the Cubs traded Soler to Kansas City. "Now it feels kind of weird with him not on the team anymore."
Jerseys of Hall of Famers such as Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, Fergie Jenkins, Greg Maddux, Ryne Sandberg, Ron Santo and Andre Dawson never go out of style.
"We have Dawson and Prior," say Tim Krick, who grew up in Wheaton.
He wears Dawson's No. 8, and son Micah, 11, inherited the old Mark Prior jersey No. 22 from his brother, Sam, 14.
"He was an old pitcher," Micah says of Prior, who already was washed up by the time Micah was born. "He was pretty good until he got an injury."
Now that 2008 Rookie of the Year Geovany Soto is a backup catcher for the White Sox, Cubs fan Gibbs Vandercook, 64, of Winfield, wears his Soto backpack only to hold his rain gear.
"I'd be able to get rid of this if they'd just give away a Bryant or Rizzo backpack," Vandercook says.
Sporting a jersey for Alfonso Soriano, who wore No. 12 before Schwarber, Eric Perez, 32, of McHenry says he didn't put much thought into that purchase in 2010,
"I just picked one off the rack," Perez says.
Rhonda Johnson, a fifth-grade teacher at Immaculate Conception School in Morris, wears a No. 25 Derrek Lee jersey to Wrigley on a recent field trip.
"It was a gift from my husband, and it was one of his favorites," she says. "But for Mother's Day, I've asked for a (David) Ross. I loved watching him be a team leader, how passionate he was and he sure looks good for being a grandpa."
Ross' No. 3 might be more popular now than when he was playing, but Sosa's No. 21 jersey, once a Wrigley staple, has become an endangered species since the beefed-up slugger walked out on the Cubs during the last game of the 2004 season and hasn't been back since.
"I saw one other guy wearing one. I wonder if people even know who he is," says Bryan Ellis, 21, who inherited his Sosa jersey from his dad, Chuck, while growing up in Elgin.
At the game with his sons, his 12-year-old daughter, Olivia, and his wife, Vicky, who grew up in Downers Grove, Krick has some sage advice for fans buying jerseys.
"You get them when they're still with the team, you never know what's going to happen," says Krick, who now serves as pastor of Christ the King Lutheran Church in Appleton, Wis.
He says the current Cubs all seem to be safe choices. But you never know. Football fans who waited until O.J. Simpson retired and got elected into the Hall of Fame before buying a Simpson jersey probably still regret that purchase.