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Published September 04, 2009 11:34 pm -
I have seen sports memorabilia at the highest levels.
But the other day, in a Mankato bar, I saw sports memorabilia at its lowest ebb.


Buster’s owner hopes ‘The Whiz’ is good for biz


By Brian Ojanpa
Free Press Staff Writer

I have seen sports memorabilia at the highest levels.

At the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., I gazed upon Babe Ruth’s bat and Ty Cobb’s cleats.

At the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., I ogled one of Shaquille O’Neal’s gondola-size sneakers.

At the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in Eveleth I stood transfixed before uniforms worn by America’s “Miracle on Ice” squad that upset the Russians in the 1980 Olympics.

But the other day, in a Mankato bar, I saw sports memorabilia at its lowest ebb.

Its brand name is “The Original Whizzinator,” and it’s become a jaw-dropping piece of wall art at Buster’s.

Owner Matt Little said he called his sister a few days ago and asked if she’d heard about the device on the news.

“She said, ‘Yeah, some idiot paid $750 for it.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, that idiot was me.’”

The 26-year-old Little is the proud owner of prosthetic paraphernalia that has lived in infamy ever since a Minnesota Vikings running back was detained with it in a Minneapolis airport.

In 2005 Onterrio Smith was whisked aside by airport security when a curious contraption was found in his possession.

The device, a fake penis attached to an athletic supporter and filled with “clean” urine, is used to pass drug tests.

Pro football athletes of Smith’s drug-addled ilk must employ this type of ruse because officials visually monitor them when they supply urine samples.

Wonderful work if you can get it — eyeballing someone’s nethers at a watering trough — but I digress.

Anyway, Smith was suspended by the Vikes and eventually kicked out of the National Football League for repeated failed drug tests.

For the past few years the Whizzinator has reposed with a bunch of Smith’s other possessions in a Twin Cities storage locker. Storage companies are allowed to clean out locker contents that go unclaimed.



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