at http://business.bostonherald.com/

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Sox eye stopping epithet: Yankees T-shirt nixed
By Scott Van Voorhis


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.''