Thanks to Ian for this. He says:
“Was cleaning out some of my old stuff from my parents house over Thanksgiving break and I found this gem of a shirt hanging in my closet.
Not sure if you can tell from the size of the picture, but the bottle in the lower left says “Hines 82 Sauce” hahaha gotta love unlicenced merch.”
Joey Porter was such an electric personality in Pittsburgh that this is the 3rd generic shirt dedicated to him (1, 2). I don’t even claim to have anywhere near as many as I used to see back in his prime.
Porter had a weird history in Black and Gold. He’ll always be one of the most beloved players from that Super Bowl XL team. Foley’s our Pens bar, just recently put up an XL team flag outside next to our Pens flag. It has awful drawings of like 8 different players, and of course Porter is there, too (between Ben and Troy). With as many years as he spent anchoring out linebacker corps, it seems stunning that he was only with Pittsburgh for 1 Super Bowl. Now we have a chance to win our 3rd of this era. If you had told me Porter would only be around for only 1 of a potential 3 championships back in like 2003-04 or something, I’d call you crazy.
So while Porter was around for less overall success than we remember, the same cannot be said for the unlicensed shirts made in his honor. They’ll survive even after the cockroaches finally die after nuclear winter.
Go Steelers.
If you have any unlicensed Pittsburgh sports gear, or awesome generic sports gear from any team, send them to me and I’ll post them.
(thanks to Cotter for the banner pic)
