Just for Fun: Why Exactly Do I Dress Our Dogs in Tommy Kramer Jerseys on Their 9th Birthdays?

One week ago today, our Chesapeake Bay Retriever, Finnegan, turned nine years old. To mark the occasion, I posted a photo on my social media sites of me and Finnegan wearing purple Tommy Kramer Vikings jerseys:

I made mention of how this has become our tradition when the dogs reach the age of nine, but there’s much more to the story. Hence this post.
For the unitiated, Tommy Kramer was the quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings from 1977-1989. He was my favorite Vikings player when I first began watching the Vikings, thanks in large part to my having watched an amazing play against the Cleveland Browns in 1980 which has become known as the “Miracle at the Met“.
Fast forward to 2011. I had joined a Facebook group called the “Tommy Kramer Fan Club”, met his sister, Eva, and another longtime friend, who in turn introduced me to Tommy, who in turn hired me as his business lawyer. To say that this was a surreal development was an understatement!
On April 7, 2012, our oldest (and first) dog, Buster Brown – our “OG” Chesapeake Bay Retriever – was turning nine years old. For some reason, I thought back to a photo that I saw in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel upon Brett Favre’s retirement from the Green Bay Packers. The photo showed a man and his dog, in matching Brett Favre Packers jerseys, sitting next to each other on their deck, backs to the camera:

I always liked that photo, and had saved it, and when April 7, 2012 rolled around, and my dog was about to turn the same age as my hero’s jersey number, the Tommy Kramer birthday photo came to be:

The following year, on March 27, 2013, Buster’s younger sister, Kailey, our lab mix and bona fide rescue diva, turned nine. And with that, a one-off photo became a family tradition:

As you can see, Kailey didn’t get the memo that she was supposed to face away from the camera (and believe me, we tried several times). Looking back, I’m so glad that she did it her way.
It would be 2022 before we’d have an opportunity to continue the tradition. This time, it was our second rescue lab mix, Maggie, who despite being a bit smaller than Buster and Kailey, did her best to make it work:

Which brings us to 2025, and Finnegan’s turn. Given that this was going to be the second photo of a Chessie in the jersey, the original photo of Buster was definitely top of mind, and we did get a few shots of Finnegan in almost the exact same pose as Buster:

Finney also gave us the same pose as the inspiration photo!:

I don’t even know what this was:

Or this:

Ultimately, we went with the photo seen on my social media sites and at the top of this post. Kudos to my wife, Jennifer, for finding the shot of Finnegan seemingly leaning in to say something to me (and given that the photo was taken two days after the Vikings’ latest soul crushing playoff loss, I said he was probably asking “Dad, do they always lose like that?”). Also kudos to Jennifer who, despite being a Packers fan, humors her husband with this silly little tradition, especially with Finnegan, whose AKC name contains the name “Bartlett” after Bryan Bartlett Starr aka Bart Starr, who led the Packers to their first Super Bowl victory on the same day as Finnegan’s birthday, forty-nine years earlier.
Our youngest dog, Poppy, is a few years away from her turn in the jersey (which, FYI, is the same jersey used by each dog). Given that Poppy models professionally, I can only imagine what her photo(s) will look like!
I hope you enjoyed the “origin story” of the Tommy Kramer jersey photos. I certainly enjoyed telling it!