Welcome to the initial edition of The Shirsey Chronicles, one man's quest to quantify a city's love for their team via the completely accurate metric of counting, classifying, and bugging out at the oddness of their t-shirt choices. That level of love is not *quite* enough to justify buying a jersey, of course.
I'm Adam Weinrib, and wherever I go, I buy a shirsey.
I can't help it. It's somewhere between a problem and a quirk. My fandoms are cemented, but my wardrobe would have you believing otherwise. A close friend didn't divulge to me until sophomore year of college that she thought I was a Phillies fan because of how often I wore a cream-colored Cole Hamels shirsey. And, you know what? Fair. If the Yankees hadn't played the Phils in the Fall Classic that year, she probably wouldn't have known the truth until our 20th reunion (when I wore the Hamels shirsey to cocktail hour).
And so, in every city I land (except Boston), I typically find a way to head to the team store, no matter the climate or interfering plans. This once led to me walking up and down the mountain that surrounds Dodger Stadium, pelted by side-swiping rain, just to purchase a Corey Seager logo baseball when I left uninspired by the shirt options. As I sat in a friend's apartment, wearing pajamas at 3:00 p.m. with my clothes in the dryer, three hours before a flight, I thought, "This is good to do."
This past weekend, I made my first baseball city pilgrimage of the year, traveling to San Francisco during the first several spring training games. Would I be able to perceive baseball fever in the streets? Or is that more of an May thing by the Bay, especially in the wake of the Jimmy Butler trade?
For more news and rumors, check out MLB Insider Robert Murray’s work on The Baseball Insiders podcast, subscribe to The Moonshot, our weekly MLB newsletter, and join the discord to get the inside scoop during the MLB season.
Best Giants Shirseys I Spotted in San Francisco
Shirseys Seen in the Wild: ... NONE! Sorry. Zero. I wanted to do a fun comparison between the number of Warriors jerseys spotted vs. the number of Giants shirts to welcome baseball's rites of spring and, well ... I didn't see much of either, to be perfectly blunt. It was in the mid-50s daily, and colder at night. Maybe there was a JT Snow shirt hiding under the layers, but if so, I didn't spot it. Honestly, the most popular piece of team merch was Golden State Valkyries gear, which was extremely heartening, but unhelpful for this quest.
Luckily, I headed straight to the source to get a better read on things.
Best New Shirsey Available at Oracle Park Store: Willy Adames, the offseason's biggest prize, has already been minted and hung on the shelves. It was a blow for me, personally, not to find a Justin-Verlander-wearing-Brandon-Crawford's-number shirt for the oddness factor, but perhaps in due time. Clearly, the Giants are being cautious here until they can make absolutely certain they don't have a Randy Johnson on their hands.
Like RJ, I was interested in killing multiple birds (with a single stone, not a baseball), so I moved on.
Best Vintage Shirsey: Willie McCovey in black with the '80s Giants alternate orange script across the front. A beautiful tribute to Stretch, and what could be just the start of an expansive vintage line, if the Giants wanted to play around with their history a bit. Some people want to support Will Clark or Matt Williams without dropping the $175 on the Mitchell and Ness BP jersey! Some people are me.
Weirdest Shirsey Available: I totally get it, and I know we're in untrodden territory here, but ... it's got to be the Buster Posey shirt, available in both black and orange and retailing for $49.99. The Giants have to be the only MLB team excitedly selling shirseys of their President of Baseball Operations. Did Farhan Zaidi have one while he was in town? This certainly underscores how certain the Giants have to be that they made the right hiring decision here. Firing Posey would be impossible. At least nobody has to burn shirts if Brian Cashman gets canned.
Best Overall Shirt: Easy. A stadium store-exclusive Willie Mays shirt with a stained glass graphic designed by artist Rob Zilla, originally used for the Rickwood Field game and imbued with more meaning following Mays' passing. Eight months later, the store remains a monument to Mays, from vintage authentic New York Giants jerseys to a tribute, The Say Hey Experience, open across the street during games. I made this purchase and never looked back.
In all, it's a spectacularly expansive store with a wide selection of shirt options, though I miss when they used to cost $29, something that is also true of eggs. This exercise will likely benefit me more when I head to a great American baseball city on gameday, rather than in February, but rest assured, when the gates open in April, a fleet of supporters repping their front office enthusiastically will fill the stands. Along with maybe one weird guy in a Brian Cashman shirt.