If you owned a Minneapolis sports bar, there’s all sorts of local sports memorabilia you’d be keen to display ; Fran Tarkenton’s tax returns. Restraining orders taken out against Kirby Puckett. The incriminating photographs of Kevin McHale that are currently in Danny Ainge’s safe. In lieu of those collectables, however, one enterprising Mankato tavern proprietor struck gold this week, winning a $750 auction to gain possession of Onterrio Smith’s Whizzinator. From the Star-Tribune’s Michael Rand :
Buster’s owner Matt Little couldn’t be in attendance for the auction, but he sent an agent to make the purchase for him. He said he wouldn’t have bought it “if the price had been 10 grand,” but overall his motivation was fairly simple.
“We’re a sports bar, and I’m a sports collector,” Little said. “I’d love to have the Original Whizzinator on display. … I’m going to use it.”
Use it right now? Little laughed.
“It’s out in the truck,” he said. “I’d feel a little weird if I had it in my hand right now.”
But soon, the Whizzinator will be out in the open at Buster’s and will be featured prominently in some of the bar’s rather risque promotions. One would imagine it will attract curiosity seekers — particularly next summer during Vikings training camp in Mankato.
“We’re going to try to get Onterrio down here,” Little said. “There might be some sentimental value. He might want to come down to see it.”