Welcome to Deadspin's famed Comment of the Week feature, wherein we recognize some of Deadspin's wittiest and best-written comments from the week that was, and give away valuable mystery prizes.
Your humble correspondent has returned this week from that den of Sin and Vice, Greater Chicagoland, to the vast expanses of the Great Plains in order to watch the NCAA tournament in the home of the defending national champions, get rid of a bunch of his worldly possessions and find someone to sublease his Kansas home (anyone? anyone?). Normally, Lawrence, KS is the kind of happy Midwestern college town where people do clichéd Midwestern college town things like leave their doors unlocked, greet people with a smile and a "Go Jayhawks" (for reals, people do this), and go to campus bars without fear of getting shot in a drive-by. Unfortunately, the latter happened Wednesday night, three blocks up the street from your correspondent's hopefully-soon-to-be-former house. What's the world coming to when underage, upper-middle-class kids from the Kansas City suburbs can't drink a 32-ounce Natty Light without getting shot? Chicago looks secure and stable by comparison. But you're not here for the Kansas Crime Report, are you? No, you're here for the Deadspin Comment of the Week, which this week goes to...ArkansasFred, who blew his prize-winning load on this comment about removing fighting from hockey :
This is similar to my idea of improving porno by taking away all the hot chicks and close-up penetration shots and replacing them with tight shots of dudes grimacing while they orgasm.
Congratulations, Fred, even if you're not really from Arkansas. Your prize is one (1) Philadelphia Phillies Shirtsey, owned by Deadspin Editor A.J. Daulerio. He'll even autograph it for you, if you're that hard up for celebrity encounters. AJ explained his love of the Shirtsey in his 2008 Phillies preview.
For Christmas this year, I received that shirt you see in the right hand corner. It was a gift from my well-intentioned fiancée, who decided that she'd invest in something sports-oriented. It is a thoughtful gift, isn't it? It is very well-made and its colors suggest the Phillies baby blues of the 70's, replete with red and white racing stripes on the arms. And the number: 22. Why, that's the number worn by Jay Loviglio in 1980. Then it was Bobby Dernier's number for a while. Now? It's mine. I'm sure my first reaction when I unwrapped the shirt was the way a parent reacts when their toddler gives them heartfelt, but completely useless presents like a shoe box full of grass or a broach made of bowtie pasta. My second reaction was pure bewilderment - when had I expressed my desire to start dressing like Jermaine Dupri? Look, I'm a Phillies fan, but I've never been much of personalized jersey guy (except in unique circumstances, of course). It's always bothered me that Philadelphia sports fans have this odd tendency to buy team jerseys, then put their own surnames on the back. You can get away with this if you're a famous singer or a politician, but not a Jewish mortgage broker from Bryn Mawr. (Honestly, you're not helping the cause if you take the Taxi Crab to Broad and Pattison then show up sporting a Flyers jersey with the "Schwartzenstein" on the back.)
And this isn't even a jersey. It's a button-down shirt that looks like a jersey. This is just awful.
Congrats, ArkansasFred! We hope you treasure it as much as its last owner did. And now on to this week's capricious and arbitrary nominees...
Re: Mike Piazza's bacne
Jefferson Tardship: "Mike Piazza's pride is marching down Market Street in San Francisco on the last Sunday in June. Naked."
Re: Testicles & nonplanets
ClintonPortishead: "What's the difference between Pluto and LeVance Fields' testicles? One night is not quite the size of a planet, and the other one is Pluto."
Re: Vince Young's meat products
Mo Knows Ladies:Seems strange that Vince Young is selling Hot Links considering his Wonderlic score resulted in a court order forbidding him from being near an open flame.
Go forth and vote. May the best comment win.
If you've seen a comment that really tickles your fancy, don't hesitate to email me a link.