<![CDATA[Deadspin: nasl]]> http://tags.deadspin.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/deadspin.com.png <![CDATA[Deadspin: nasl]]> http://deadspin.com/tag/nasl http://deadspin.com/tag/nasl <![CDATA[Caution: This Man Is Not 100 Percent Pure Beef [Soccer]]]> You may know Dave Wasser as the world's foremost collector of North American Soccer League game tapes (who doesn't?). But there is much, much more to the Austin, TX resident than that; he's a true Renaissance man. Just look at the photo above, and when your realize that he's not one of the chicks, it hits you. Dave Wasser has the most awesome job in the world.

Costumed roller derby hot dog mascot.

And he's a vegetarinan hot dog.

From Wasser's Q&A on Fracture:

When and how did you become a derby mascot? Why become a giant veggie hot dog?

A wiener is a phallic symbol, and I appreciate the irony of putting wiener into a female sport. Also I'm an ethical vegetarian, and I want to show that veggie dogs can have some attitude.

There are drawbacks, however. Being a veggie dog, Wasser is often the subject of vicious pummelings by the meat-eating roller derby public. Witness one such incident:

And now just because we're on the subject, here's a pretty awesome roller derby takedown. "Is she alright?"

Here's to you, Dave. No matter what the world throws at me from here on out, I will survive it. Because my spirit will never fail to be uplifted by the thought of you at home, watching an old Detroit Cougars vs. Washington Whips game while in your hot dog suit.

Hotrod Dog [Fracture]

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<![CDATA[Soccer Historian Keeps Long-Abandoned Hope Alive [Soccer]]]> Are you now or have you ever been affiliated with the North American Soccer League? If so, you can stop boring your friends with tales of late-'70s "cleat parties" and actually do something useful. Like contacting NASL superfan Dave Wasser, who is amassing the world's largest collection of game tapes in a quixotic attempt to create a definitive video library of matches that no one really wanted to watch in the first place.

As you can imagine, American soccer games from the 1970s are not that easy to come by. Most matches weren't broadcast on television and even if they were, TiVo hadn't been invented yet. There was a bizarre technology known as "video cassettes," however, and Dave is on a never-ending quest to hunt them down. Welcome to your future, MLS fans.

When the league offices shut down in 1985, someone from the office called around to various players and coaches saying, "We've got these tapes of the games you were in, do you want them." The problem was that they were on 3/4" tape. Your standard home VCR is 1/2" tape. People had footage of themselves they had literally never seen because they didn't have the equipment. So, a decade later, as Wasser is following the league tracks, he's telling people, "I can play those tapes, do you want me to copy them for you?"

He currently has about 300 of the league's 1,000 or so matches and keeps a record of them on his website. He also collects U.S. National Team games and has so many that when US Soccer needs old game footage, they call him. This is truly a pursuit worthy of only the most obsessive sports fans, and even though Dave understands that his task will never truly be completed, he soldiers on, desperate to find footage of that classic 1978 Minnesota-New York playoff series. (Who could forget that?)

Oh, and it doesn't help that there is one league official who actively obstructs Dave's hobby, by controlling the rights to his team's games, but refusing to let his tapes be copied for any reason. That's right—it's Elliot Hoffman, former owner of ... the Philadelphia Fury.

Why Yes, He Does Have a Copy of the Tulsa Roughnecks v. the Edmonton Drillers [Unprofessional Foul]
Historic Soccer Videotapes [DaveBrett.com]

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