#79: "name and number"

It's been almost two weeks. I'm in withdrawal. There's nothing good to watch every afternoon. There's no reason to get up early on the weekend just to watch TV. 

World Cup 2018 is over, and I promise that this will be the last I write about it. It didn't end how many of us wished (Football was supposed to come home this year), but I'm OK with France winning it. There were only a few countries that, if they had won it, I would have been rather upset seeing as champions. Russia is one, for all they've done to our country at the moment. Croatia, but only because I was bitter for a few days. I guess that's really it, not sure why I thought the list would be longer.

After the third place match ended I fought my way to the back of my closet for an empty hanger. I bought something for this tournament that I've never done for a World Cup - I bought a country's shirt. Not only did I buy a shirt, but I bought one with a name and number on it. I admit it, I was caught up in the chance that football was actually coming home and in a fit of distant familial engagement I picked up an England shirt with the Golden Boot winner's name and number on it. But now it's time to put that replica of Harry Kane's shirt away. I'll break it out again in two years for the Euros, I'm sure.

I own many Tottenham shirts. I also own a DC United shirt, a few Detroit Red Wings sweaters, and an old USMNT shirt that I bought on clearance that doesn't fit anymore. All of those shirts have one thing in common, save for two - they are blank on the back. 

The outliers here are interesting. The first one I ever purchased was a 2010-2011 Tottenham Champions League shirt. The club had finally made it to the CL and the club store did free personalizations. I got #3, Gareth Bale. The second is one I'd wanted for a while but never got to. It's a Detroit Red Wings home sweater with Steve Yzerman's #19 on the back. He was the captain of the team back when I discovered the sport, and who doesn't want to wear the shirt of your leader/hero/captain?

Dig deeper though and there's something about names and numbers on shirts these days. As much as it pains me to say, gone are the days of the Yzerman's in hockey. Those same days of the Gehrig's, the Ripken's, the Banks', the Brett's. The days of Magic vs. Bird, the Jerry West's, the David Robinson's, the Reggie Miller's, and the John Stockton's. The days where players like John Elway, Dan Marino, Barry Sanders, and Lawrence Taylor were in the game. These are not the days even of players like Ledley King.

To their respective teams, these players are heroes. They are the names that are mentioned or sung about long after they're gone. They've achieved this status by being very good at what they do, and by pulling on the same shirt for every game, every season, from day one until retirement. These days team loyalty is second to free agent money, and who can blame an athlete for taking the money and running to another club?

Bale left Tottenham for Real Madrid. We all knew it was coming and I haven't worn that shirt since. Yzerman has a banner in the rafters at (what should still be called "The Joe") Little Caesars Arena, and though he works elsewhere now as a player there was only one club.

That's the beauty of my Kane shirt. Harry can't stop being English, so no matter what the future brings, he'll always wear that number 9. Now he just needs to be come a hero.