"Hey Diddle Diddle, Ray Rice Up The Middle" is becoming this season's "Ball So Hard University."
The name running back Ray Rice came up with for his miraculous 4th-and-29 conversion in San Diego has now been turned into T-shirts.
Rice had the T-shirts designed and printed locally, and they're now selling around the Baltimore area. One local retailer said he's surprised by how fast the shirts are flying off shelves and indicated that more than 1,000 have sold since Tuesday morning.
The T-shirt is going to be showcased on ESPN's NFL Live this afternoon.
Rice said all the proceeds from the T-shirts will go to his foundation, the Ray Rice Charitable Fund, and be spread around the community to those in need.
"It's holiday time," Rice said. "It's a time where I feel like it's better to give than to receive. So all the proceeds go to [my foundation] when I have a toy drive, or when it's time to go to a shelter, or it's time for me to throw a Ray Rice Day in Baltimore."
I instantly loved the phrase when Rice came up with it Sunday night. I also thought it was crazy that he came up with it so fast, and wondered how it popped in his head.
Rice said he whipped it out once before when joking around with former Ravens fullback Le'Ron McClain and "just had to resurface it." It originally hails from the nursery rhyme about the cow jumping over the moon.
"I just thought it was kind of funny – the phrase," Rice said. "It was only right to name it, 'Hey Diddle Diddle, Ray Rice Up The Middle,' with a little bit of slash and dash, but eventually I had to go back to the middle.
"When you get older and the kids get older, you can tell them it was a nursery rhyme."
