VF Imagewear’s Int’l MLB T-Shirts Spread From Red Sox Originals

Red Sox T-Shirts For Sale In Several Languages

The Yawkey Way Store next to Fenway Park is selling Red Sox T-shirts that “spell out ‘Red Sox’ in [five] different languages” — Gaelic, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese and Spanish — above the team’s logo, according to Donna Goodison of the BOSTON HERALD. The Gaelic, Italian and Japanese shirts also show the respective countries’ flags. While the “initial Spanish-language shirts depicted the Dominican Republic flag to pay homage to Red Sox favorites David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez, it since has been removed.” The Hebrew T-shirt also was printed without a flag. Yawkey Way Store manager Patty Hamm said, “We thought that could potentially be more controversial. There are many Jewish people who may speak Hebrew religiously, but politically don’t support Israel.” The store is “considering adding a French T-shirt.” MLB licensee VF Imagewear initially “produced the shirts as Red Sox exclusives for the store, but it since has expanded some of them to other MLB teams,” including the Yankees and Mariners (BOSTON HERALD, 9/5).

SCRATCH & WHIFF? Sales of $5 Red Sox scratch lottery tickets “have plunged” since the team’s recent slide in the standings. The scratch game launched in April and ticket sales “soared to nearly $12[M] in one week. More recently sales averaged nearly $2.7[M] a week.” But Massachusetts state lottery officials “dismissed speculation that the team’s poor performance is pummeling sales,” saying that all scratch tickets “experience high sales at first, then decline after a few weeks.” The $5 scratch tickets are the “second-biggest sellers in the Lottery’s history, with almost $100[M] sold so far” (BOSTON GLOBE, 9/2).