Find me a mainstream, reputable retailer that is selling a blank NFL jersey. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist. Frankly, I can’t believe one doesn’t exist … but on the Internets, it seems there is nowhere else to find a blank football jersey than on eBay. Not Dicks, not Sports Authority, neither Modell’s nor Cosby’s sells an unmarred jersey.

Not to spill any beans, but there is a plot to nab a Giants jersey and customize it with Plaxico Burress’ nom de guerre, Harris Smith. Sadly, finding a jersey to which this can be done in a timely manner is proving rather difficult. Yes, it can be done by buying a jersey from any of the aforesaid retailers and having them send it out to be customized … but there is a time constraint and the retailers’ time tables (two fucking weeks) don’t get the job done in time.

One would think it would be possible just to buy a blank jersey, some iron-on red numbers and letters and voila! … but no. What a racket. The NFL must be trying to capitalize on every customization of their apparel. Why else would they not retail blank jerseys?

As a kid, I had a real love of personalized hockey jerseys. Sadly, the players I liked were not New York-area players and I had to get my jerseys customized with names of the Norris division players I admired. But it was possible, at least. I still have a Roenick, a Chelios and an Yzerman jersey to prove it. As far as I know, it is still possible to buy blank NHL jerseys, and blanks of other professional sports uniforms … just not the NFL.

Again, what a racket. Fleecing the consumer and depriving them of their liberty to sport a blank jersey or to customize it on their own.

Kind of fascist, isn’t it?

I have to say I’m grateful that I’ve never even thought to fear having my throat slashed for supporting any of my favorite teams.

Yesterday, Celtic and Rangers met up for the Old Firm Derby in Glasgow. Rangers beat Hoops 1 – 0, which is a huge disappointment, but worse than that, a gang of North Irish Protestants set upon a guy wearing a Celtic strip in Belfast and sliced his throat. Those purported to have done the slashing weren’t even Rangers supporters, they were just Protestants who singled the guy out as Catholic because of his Celtic shirt.

I root for Celtic because I’m Catholic, sure … but I wonder, sometimes, how religious affiliation could matter so much to someone that it’s worth slashing someone’s throat. I know it’s Belfast but, come on, it’s still barbaric. Then, Belfast is hardly a love-thy-neighbor kind of town.

As I think of it, there really isn’t an American sports rivalry with the same kind of acrimony about it as there are between clubs in Great Britain. New York has two baseball teams, but who really cares? Being a Mets fan usually just means you’re either from Queens or you just hate the Yankees organization. It’s not like Episcopalians root for the Mets and Evangelical Baptists go to Yankee games. Maybe Giants against Dodgers was (is) a big rivalry, but still nothing compared to the venom in Northern Ireland between Catholic and Protestant.

There aren’t even enough cities with multiple teams in America, either. While London has gobs of football clubs, Liverpool and its area has a handful, the Northeast of England has three teams in the Premiership, only Chicago and New York have two baseball teams apiece (yes, I did not mention LA or the Bay Area) and only NY has two football teams. Sure, Cubs fans and White Sox fans are not, in theory, buddies … neither are Jets and Giants fans … but has anyone in the U.S. had their throat slashed over a sporting event.

Probably.

But nothing springs to mind.