I own a Diamondbacks jersey, with Byrnes/22 on the back, of course. It’s the black one the D’Backs wear during Saturday home games. For me, it functions as a light overcoat; it comes down to my knees and it’s big enough to accommodate several layers of T-shirts, 3/4 sleeve shirts and sweatshirts underneath. (Dressing in layers is a must in the San Francisco Bay Area.)

Several days ago, I was wearing the jersey while walking in downtown Berkeley, just north of Oakland, when I heard a man say, “I just had to chase you down to tell you how much I admire your taste in jerseys.” I smiled and said “Thank You” and he turned back in the direction he had come from and I proceeded on my way. He was a short guy with close cropped hair in his late 40’s or early 50’s. Neatly dressed and sober. He didn’t try to touch me or use his comments as a sleazy pick up line. He was just acknowledging that I was wearing a Byrnes jersey. And he made my day by doing it.

Every now and then, someone acknowledges my wearing of some item that says Byrnes on it. I love hearing it.

Byrnesie’s just finished three days of guest-hosting the 3-7 pm show on KNBR, our local sports talk radio station. KNBR is the flagship station of the Giants, and each day, there were 2 or 3 callers who lamented the fact that he is not wearing orange and black. (Byrnesie is from the Bay Area and grew up a Giants fan). As Byrnesie put it, the timing just hasn’t worked out.

The Giants could have had him after 2004, when, despite the fact that he batted .283, with 20 homers and 39 doubles, the A’s were looking to trade him. But during the off-season, we only heard about the Padres, the Diamondbacks and the Mets as possible suitors. The Giants could also have had him after the disastrous 2005 season; this week he said he was willing to be the fourth outfielder for the Giants because he knew Barry Bonds would miss a lot of games. (Bonds missed 32 games in 2006. Byrnes also plays the other two outfield positions). But, though Byrnes’ agent, Michael Sasson, let the Giants know that his client was available, the Giants were not interested.

Byrnes signed with the Diamondbacks, and the rest, as they say, is history. He’d have withered as a fourth outfielder. Stats show that the more he plays the better he gets, a concept that Oakland GM Billy Beane could not wrap his rigid brain around. Byrnes became a leader on a playoff-bound Diamondbacks team instead of a reserve on a moribund Giants team built around the questions of whether Barry Bonds’ body would break before he passed Henry Aaron, and when and if he would be indicted of something. The Giants have good young pitchers, but it will be years before they are contenders, and the addition of Byrnes, in and of itself, would not have changed that. The Giants might have had a crack at him this off-season, but the Diamondbacks made that issue moot in August with the offer of a three-year contract extension.

This week, Byrnesie wondered out loud if there is any loyalty left in sports, pointing to the case of former Atlanta Falcons head coach Bobby Petrino, who quit with 3 games left in the season to take over the head coaching job at the University of Arkansas. Byrnesie said that the only loyalty left is that of the fans for the team. And then he added the loyalty of the team to the fans, though I am less willing to buy that. Teams don’t show loyalty to the fans by threatening to move unless financially hard-pressed cities pay public subsidies for private stadiums, or by taking games away from free local TV and putting them on pay cable. (He also said that the Falcons could have fired Petrino during the season, so why couldn’t Petrino quit during the season, and I see some merit in that argument, though I won’t get into the Petrino case here).

But every now and then, there is a show of loyalty in sports and one such case is Byrnesie saying yes to the contract extension with the Diamondbacks. He chose to stay with the team that gave him a starting job after an abysmal second half of 2005. (And really, that’s all it was. He was hitting .266 when the A’s traded him at the All-Star break). He could have gone into free agency coming off two career seasons, the second of which established him as among the premier base stealers in the majors. He could have come home to San Francisco and patrolled left field for good buddy Barry Zito & Co. , handling the “You’re no Barry Bonds” burden with more aplomb than most players could. He might have even gotten more money somplace else, though $30 million over the next three years ain’t nothin’ to sneeze at. But he waived his prime crack at free agency to dance with who brung him.

The Diamondbacks may not return the loyalty in two or three years. Teams often don’t and that has been going on for quite some time. For example, in the interview Byrnes had yesterday with his boyhood idol, Will Clark, it came out that, after 9 years, Clark wanted a five-year deal with the Giants and was willing to take less money per year to achieve that end, but the Giants would only offer him two years, even after the Rangers and the Orioles offered him five years. So Clark left San Francisco, while still in the prime of his career. Byrnes may be shown the door in Phoenix as unceremoniously as that. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t do the honorable thing now by signing with them.

He now has the task of helping the Arizona Diamondbacks finish what they started last year. He’ll be one of the guys–Orlando Hudson being the other–called upon to take on the unenviable task of filling the clubhouse leadership shoes of the apparently departing Tony Clark. And Byrnesie still has his own challenges to meet, such as batting .300 and knocking in 100 runs.

A lot of folks, from Sacramento to San Jose, will be watching with great interest. When a local boy makes good, the love remains, even when he leaves home.

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