Sports   

Releated Paperbacks:

The Little Red (Sox) Book: A Revisionist Red Sox History by Bill Lee and Jim Prime 


Chasing Steinbrenner: Pursuing the Pennant in Boston and Toronto
by Rob Bradford

 

Those Damn Yankees: The Secret Life of America's Greatest Franchise
by Dean Chadwin

 

 

 

June 21, 2003

"Boston Sucks" T-Shirt
Banned from Yankee Stadium

Did you know that you can’t wear a Boston Sucks t-shirt at Yankee Stadium anymore? New rule took effect in 2002 – part of Major League Baseball’s new Family Decency Act. The act started in Seattle.

You know I never believed in the Boston Sucks t-shirt, which dates back to about 1977. That’s the first I ever saw it being sold in the stores outside Yankee Stadium. I’m pretty sure it started just then; summer of ’77. Created a stir at the time.

Thought it was kind of rude then. And that was long before I’d ever been to Boston. Now, many years later, having been to Boston many times, and having a number of good friends from Boston, and having met so many good people from Boston, I have to say that Boston doesn’t suck. At all. It’s actually quite nice.

But something about the censorship of a Boston Sucks t-shirt at Yankee Stadium bothers me.

Funny this all happened the summer after 9-11, when everyone in every major American city started wearing I Love NY t-shirts. I bet you they even wore them in Boston. So how rude would it be for folks in Boston to adopt I Love NY t-shirts when New Yorkers at Yankee Stadium were wearing Boston Sucks t-shirts. For that alone I’m glad they banned the shirt.

Anyway, as luck would have it, I went my whole life living up to my ideals and never wearing a Boston Sucks t-shirt until the summer of 2001. Was at the game with friends, and Letizia bought us all Boston Sucks t-shirts. Sort of a celebration. And it was good timing because that happened to be a game I ended up wearing a suit to – the change of clothes after work didn’t work out. The cotton t-shirt was a comfortable change from the white-collar shirt I had on. So there I am in a suit at Yankee Stadium, the suit partially hiding a Boston Sucks white t-shirt – and that by itself drew a lot of attention. A whole bunch of strangers applauded me throughout the evening, when I went up to get beer, when I went to the bathroom, when I went up to get more beer, when I returned back to my seat each time..

You know, a thumbs up to the idiot who had bad enough taste to wear a suit to a baseball game, but at least showed he was trying by putting on a Boston Sucks t-shirt underneath. So I ended up accidentally making more of a statement wearing one than the typical nitwit.

And then before you could spell Carl Yasztremski they instituted the Family Decency Act.

I feel fortunate to have worn a Boston Sucks t-shirt while it could still be worn; probably almost as much as the folks who threw beer on the ballpen car when it was still considered "in good taste" back in the seventies, before they made that illegal.

 

--LouV

 

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