The Good, The Bad, The WTF

It's not often that I stay in-country to make fun of a shirt. It's like shooting fish in a barrel--it's just too easy. All you have to do is go back to the '80s and '90s when everyone involved was trying so hard to be edgy and hip while attempting to make the average American care. It was a colossal miscalculation and a giant waste of time.

One of the ways that was supposed to lure the average American sports fan was to increase scoring. "But the field is so big, how can someone ever score quickly?" someone (probably) whined. America's solution? Cut the field size by three-quarters and put it inside. With walls. Boom, indoor soccer was born.

Major Indoor Soccer League (the first one) started up in 1978, just as the Cosmos reached their heights. It was moderately successful, just enough for a competing league to form in 1984--the National Professional Soccer League (initially known as American Indoor Soccer Association). In that secondary, USFL-like league, Buffalo Blizzard plied their trade.

Buffalo started up their team in 1992 and made a run of it until 2001, when the league shut down. Needless to say, that was the apex of the stupid soccer jersey era in the US. Thankfully, the Blizzard followed the rest of America in this trend. Just as thankfully, someone bought a replica, got tired of it and put it up for sale on eBay.

I have no background info on when exactly this shirt was from. If I had to hazard a guess, based on the Adidas design, I'd say about 1993-94, give or take.

Boy Howdy, is that a looker. Adidas sure did (and do) love their three stripes, didn't they. I would bet that, if one had to count how many stripes actually are on this shirt, the count would end up in the--wait for it--triple digits. Sublimated print for company logos makes my heart hurt.

What's that on the sleeve anyway? In early, edgy ESPN2 graphic font, it says "It's you turf".
Awesome. It's a progenitor of Under Armor's "We must protect this house" campaign, all started on this team's shirt. Boo yah, indeed.

What's that I said above? Oh yeah, this is an eBay special. Unsurprisingly, it's from in country, so no need to pay those inflated UK postage rates this time. As a plus, within the item description, there is a line that will appeal to two sets of online purchasers. The first half of the line states that the item is "gently worn". Hey, that's great for collectors. The second half reads "(by a girl)". Perv Heaven!

Anyway, right now, the shirt will set you back about $10 with postage. There are just under three days left, so you had better get your money together as soon as possible. You don't want to miss out on this one.