T-shirts! Get your "grim and depressing" T-shirts here!

Last November, New York Post writer Maureen Callahan described Rochester as “grim and depressing” in a column, prompting the Rochester Red Wings to announce they would host Maureen Callahan Night on Friday, Aug. 21. Now, the Triple-A baseball franchise has unveiled a line of "GRIM & DEPRESSING" T-shirts for the event.

Callahan has seen the shirts and actually finds them neither grim nor depressing. "They're hilarious," she said via email, adding that she will definitely be at the game (which starts at 7:05 p.m. and is against the Louisville Bats). "Really looking forward to it," she said.

Originally, the Red Wings thought they would be able to turn around the shirts in a couple weeks. But, "We had a bunch of ideas ... so settling on how many to do and which design took some time," said Tim Doohan, the team's social media and promotions manager. "Once we had the designs we wanted, we kept tweaking little things here and there and then the approval process through MiLB (Minor League Baseball) took longer than we expected."

One shirt features the words GRIM & DEPRESSING on a gray background and a list of "things that people love about ROC," Doohan said: "the public market, Garbage Plates, Strong Museum, Genny Brewery, Jazz Fest, etc." Another combines the Rochester flower symbol and the head of Red Wings mascot Spikes encircled by the words GRIM AND DEPRESSING, NY. The third features the words GRIM & DEPRESSING (with a red-feather “R” in GRIM) and a rendering of the downtown skyline.

Each T-shirt costs $19.99 and is available for pre-order on the Red Wings website. A T-shirt/game ticket combo is available for $26.

According to the team, the point of Maureen Callahan Night is not to ridicule the big-city scribe, but to celebrate all things Rochester and show her “that Rochester is everything BUT grim and depressing.”

The night before, on Thursday, Aug. 20, the Red Wings will host their second Office Night, with special guest Brian Baumgartner, who played slow-talking accountant Kevin Malone on NBC’s The Office. That game, which also starts at 7:05 p.m., is against the Durham Bulls.

The Red Wings' first Office Night last July, featuring Leslie David Baker, who played Stanley Hudson on the sitcom, drew thousands of fans. "(The) line to meet him was the longest line we’ve had for any appearance of a celebrity guest since I've been here — any football or baseball or entertainment icon," longtime general manager Dan Mason said at the time.

Reporter Marcia Greenwood covers general assignments. Send story tips to MGREENWO@Gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter as @MarciaGreenwood. Your subscription makes work like this possible.