Your morning roundup for Dec. 14, the day we learned how to legally maim your children. Image via TecmoBowl.org (H/T Owen Good). Got any stories or photos for us? Tip your editors.
What we're watching (all times EST, unless noted): First round of the Dubai Ladies' Masters in the Ladies European Tour at 3 (same-day tape, Golf Channel). Cincinnati at Wright State at 7 (ESPN2) and Florida International at Maryland at 7:30 (ESPN) in men's college basketball. Chicago at Minnesota in NHL hockey at 7:30 (Versus). First round of the JBWere Masters in the PGA Tour Australasia at 8:30 (Golf Channel). Tennessee at College of Charleston in men's college basketball at 9 (ESPN2).
Read Me
The secret history of the vintage t-shirt: "Buying a vintage T-shirt is an act of larceny. We didn't really go to Altamont or WrestleMania 2, but by wearing a 50/50 cotton-polyester blend, already nicely broken in, we steal someone else's memory of the event. A couple of years ago, on a shopping trip with my friend David, I bought a late-'80s Texas Rangers T-shirt. I actually rooted for the '80s Rangers, but none of my shirts made it to adulthood. So I stole someone's Rangers memory, combined it with my own fuzzy one, and appeared to the world like the ultimate die-hard. The act of memory-stealing gets stranger still. Several clothiers have begun to sell 'retro' T-shirts, which are new shirts designed to look like they're old and worn. 'Our aesthetic is vintage,' Andrei Najjar, the vice president of marketing for Junk Food Clothing, tells me. Junk Food snaps up the rights to '80s icons ranging from Snoopy to R2-D2 and puts them on shirts that look like they could have been made two decades earlier. Their business model is to steal a collective cultural memory and sell it back to us without holes or sweat stains." [Slate]
This Date In Deadspin History
Dec. 14, 2006: The Matsuzaka Has Landed
Elsewhere
The only NBA roundup you'll need today: Chris Sheridan drops a million words about what's happening in the league right now. [Sheridan Hoops]
Apology addiction: "I'm sorry my vagina is so sensitive. This is a thing I actually said to a man who wielded his erect penis with all the delicacy of a public works employee jack-hammering through concrete. There's making love, and then there's some good old-fashioned fuckin'. I'm pretty sure he thought he was doing the latter, but it actually felt as though he were attempting to shove my cervix up into my throat. To be fair to him, he was genetically blessed with an overabundance of drilling equipment. To be fair to me, my vagina is not constructed of reinforced steel." [Jezebel]
Gotta support the team: "Things would be so much more convenient had the Eagles simply lost in Miami and officially put an end to the playoff possibility. But they didn't, and with Dallas pulling a fourth-quarter meltdown against the New York Giants Sunday night, what was an absurd notion this time a week ago has upgraded itself to ridiculous." [Philadelphia Daily News]
Scott Boras being Scott Boras: "In conjunction with Prince Fielder's free-agent debut, his representatives at the Scott Boras Corporation produced a 73-page binder celebrating his achievements in the game. The book originally encompassed eight sections, but the Boras folks added a ninth after Fielder finished third in the National League Most Valuable Player race — marking the third time since 2007 that he has cracked the top five." [ESPN]
John Buck is a hero: "‘As Buck and his wife pull their car out of their Broward County neighborhood, the Marlins catcher notices landscaping crews hard at work. Then he notices a tall palm tree shaking violently in the distance. ‘I was like, ‘Man, are they cutting trees down over there?'' he says to his wife. Turns out the tree was shaking after being hit by a car, an accident Buck happened upon perhaps one minute after it occurred. ‘I pulled out of the entrance (of his neighborhood) and I saw this car upside down and smoking. I kind of saw a hand pulling at the window,' he said. ‘I looked at my wife and my wife's like, ‘Go help! Just go!'' Buck ran to the overturned car and went to work with two other Good Samaritans. Buck and a bus driver who stopped to give assistance were able to help the car's driver crawl out of a window of the upside-down car. Buck and another man pulled the passenger out. Buck also called 911, but at the scene he said. ‘I didn't do a whole lot of talking - everybody was speaking Spanish around me.'" [Palm Beach Post]
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