Posted on 08/25/2005 10:30:21 AM PDT by raccoonradio
Forget about strutting around in that ``Yankees Suck'' T-shirt next time you head over to Fenway Park to diss the Bronx Bombers.
In a bid to restrain some of Red Sox Nation's more unruly fans, the Sox have begun a quiet policy of effectively barring display of the blunt T-shirts inside Fenway.
Sox officials are strongly urging fans who show up with ``Yankees Suck'' shirts to turn them inside out. While declining to call it an outright ban, team communications chief Charles Steinberg claimed there have been no incidents where fans refused the team's request.
Team executives rolled out the T-shirt policy, first reported on Boston magazine's Web site, after hearing numerous complaints last season about the off-color put-down of the Yankees, Steinberg said.
The shirts themselves are sold before games by independent vendors hawking their wares on the streets around the ballpark.
``We are determined to keep Fenway a place where families feel comfortable,'' Steinberg said.
In fact, team officials have been frustrated enough to even muse among themselves about tamer put-downs fans could use, he said.
But Sox executives have stopped short of selling alternative T-shirts or offering official, sanitized chants.
``That would reek of some phony, synthetic corporate construction and would be rejected, as perhaps it should be,'' Steinberg said.
Still, the Sox may be on solid legal ground when it comes to forcing fans to cover up ``Yankees Suck'' T-shirts, according to one local legal expert.
Several courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have upheld the right of private business and property owners to restrict offensive messages or speech, said Andrew Glincher, head of Nixon Peabody's Boston office.
And the move may strike a sympathetic chord among fans fed up with unruly behavior in the stands. ``I can't say it upsets me terribly,'' said Michael Rutstein, publisher of Boston Baseball and a frequent critic of the Sox owners. ``Some people are willing to draw a line at some point, and I guess I am one of them.''
He who laughs last laughs best. I laugh when people claimed months ago the Yanks were out of it. I'll also laugh when they beat the Red Sox this year in the playoffs.
From BostonDirtDogs:
"Fans have told us loud and clear that, for families, such shirts are offensive." -- Charles Steinberg on the shirt ban
"It makes us look, as a community, like idiots." -- (sports writer) Bill Burt circa 2004, WEEI's The Big Show on the YS shirt wearing fandom
"I've stated many times that there is ZERO hatred on the field between these two teams (Red Sox-Yankees), for the most part, zero. Probably as much respect as anything... The hatred part is in the stands and in the media, they need that sorta stuff for material, and they make it into their own little story often times. What they don't make up, fans seem to give them willingly." -- Curt Schilling, circa 2004
--
and from me:
"JETER IS PLAYING GOLF TODAY
THIS IS BETTER!"--sign at Red Sox victory parade
I was up in the Burlington, VT area over the weekend--thought it was both Yankees and Red Sox territory. You can hear the Red Sox (WJOY) and Yankees (WVMT, and WIRY across the lake
from Plattburgh) on the radio. Someone at the Vt. Expos game was wearing one of the "Choke: Official Soft Drink of the Yankees" shirts. But at the same game, there were loud cheers when the Yankees (they were winning) and Red Sox (they were
losing) scores were announced (Red Sox fans tried to shut them down).
A Winooski, VT bar's ad: CATCH ALL THE YANKEES GAMES HERE
(Me: Catch me boycotting the place.) I did eat at a pizza
place in Colchester, VT, called NY Pizza Oven. Food
quality? Eh, I've had better. Lots of pix of Yankees
teams in the place, yuck :)
No wonder the Yankees suck.
Curse o' Hillary.
OCT 00--Yanks beat Mets in World Series
NOV 00--"#1 Yankee Fan" H. Clinton elected
NOV 01--Yanks lose to Diamondbacks in WS delayed by 9/11
OCT 02--Yanks don't even make it to WS; Angels beat Giants
OCT 03--Yanks lose to Marlins in WS
OCT 04--In biggest choke in baseball history, Yanks lose
last 4 games of ALCS; Sox go on to sweep Cards in WS
The witch!
I thought you might be interested in this timeline. But probably all New Yorkers have it memorised already.
Yankees Blow.
>>You can hear the Red Sox (WJOY) and Yankees (WVMT, and WIRY across the lake
from Plattburgh) on the radio
Ironically enough, the antenna for WVMT (Yankees affiliate) is about 3 blocks away from the NY Pizza Oven so diners there can probably pick up the games on their fillings! But I do find reasons to listen to WVMT while up there: Ingraham, Hannity,
Savage, O'Reilly, et al.
I vehemently disagree - they SUCK.
Yeah, I know, they have won a quarter of the world series ever played, I still hate 'em.
FYI
After Hillary Clinton moved to NY, announced she was a Yankees fan, and ran for the Senate, the NY Yankees have NOT won World Series..
Has the cursed reversed?..Is it possible that the Yankees will NOT win another WS as long as Hillary is in the Senate?
FYI..
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