The Red Sox class A affiliate, the Lowell Spinners, are trying to get youth leagues to get rid of the yankee teams in their leagues. The Lowell Spinners have offered to pay for all new uniforms for teams that change their name to the Spinners from the Yankees.
In a message on the Spinners’ Web site, general manager Tim Bawmann said many children in New England are devastated when they are assigned to be on a team called the Yankees. “When you are a kid playing baseball it is pure fun, and worrying about what team you are on should be the least of your concerns,” he said.
They are also offering to allow any team that changes its name to come play a game on their field during the next year. I find this fairly humorous; many leagues have already gotten rid of the Yankee teams (or the Red Sox teams in New York) due to the rivalry, and this is just an attempt to get the rest to follow suit.
Maybe I am out of touch, or when I was a kid maybe I would not have cared enough, but I just can’t see being devastated to have to play on the Yankee team in a kid’s league. Apparently it is a problem, though. Or, at least, it makes for some great publicity and increased ticket sales.
Boston players are real role models for kids who want to look like a bunch of street bums. Why don’t they clean them up? Looking dirty with ugly hair certainly doesn’t make them play any better.
I think that the only reason that they encourage them to look like a bunch of bums is because the Yankees require their players to be clean cut. At least, that’s the only reason that I was ever given. The “Bad Boys” of baseball, as it were. I don’t really think that having long hair or scruffy faces is all that bad.
The idea that the Lowell Spinners are having, though, is that the kids in New England that are Boston fans but have to play on a team called the Yankees are having emotional problems, and they want to discourage that from happening by buying new uniforms for any team that wants to change their name from the Yankees to the Spinners. And, of course, to allow them to play a game at the Spinners’ stadium.