True fans of a certain Chicago baseball team are said to bleed Cubbie blue. But Beckham Zobrist wears his loyalty upfront: The 7-year-old Cubs fan's prosthetic eye bears the team logo.
Beckham's right eye was removed in 2012 within weeks of the Morton, Ill., boy being diagnosed with retinoblastoma, an eye cancer that most often affects small children. His first prosthetic eye was made to match his remaining eye, the Peoria Journal Star reports.
His parents and doctors had tried to help him embrace his prosthetic, crafting him novelty eyes with the logos of Superman, Batman or the Green Lantern, but he would wear them only at home around his family.
Then last November, Beckham had a Christmas wish. At the top of his list, Beckham asked for a new eyeball—a new, working eye, something his parents will never be able to give him. So they asked, “If you can't have an eyeball, what's next on your list?”
“A Cubs eye,” he responded.
The ocularist who hand makes Beckham's prosthetic eyes came through, and on Christmas morning, Beckham unwrapped his new eye and immediately popped it in.
“I didn't know that I was gonna get it,” Beckham said. “When I did I was, like, so excited.”
Beckham proudly wore his new eye, and even used it in show-and-tell in his kindergarten class to demonstrate how he uses it.
“I want to take my eye out and show my class how I do it,” Beckham told his mom.
After Erin wrote a letter to a Cubs fan page sharing how his love for the Cubs had given him such a boost, the family was invited to walk onto Wrigley Field ahead of a game they were attending.
Beckham and his father, Nick, were surprised by an invitation into the Cubs clubhouse, where a star-struck Beckham got to meet with players, including second baseman Ben Zobrist, a distant cousin.
“He showed every single guy. They'd stop and he'd stick his face out. He was so proud,” Nick said.
And as the Cubs battle to win the National League Championship Series, Beckham may get a chance to see something the team's long-suffering fans have yearned for: the Cubbies in their first World Series since 1945.
