
Yankees Suck: The punks who made the most popular T-shirts in Boston - wglb
http://grantland.com/features/yankees-suck-t-shirts-boston-red-sox/
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jrkatz
It's surprising to read an article that touches on the old Boston hardcore
scene without any mention of FSU. For anyone interested in more stories of
Boston hardcore and crime, take a glance at
[http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/punk-rock-fight-
clu...](http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/punk-rock-fight-
club-20070823)

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gamache
The FSU link you posted and the Suckers link above are some of the best
illustrations of why I considered the Boston hardcore scene to be a collection
of human garbage, ca. 1995-2005.

Prior to '95, it was the skinheads who would show up and ruin punk shows,
often employed as bouncers by the club. Then their girlfriends all went
rockabilly and they gave way to waves and waves of hahdcaw meatheads. The
uniform changed, the music changed, but the fact that I was regularly catching
punches, elbows, and kicks by people who rolled 10+ deep at all times did not
change at all.

I especially love the casual tone in which these morons can reflect on the
past and say stuff like _“You gotta understand, it was mayhem back then,”
Wilson says. “There was 30 of us, and somehow, we’d always find 30 guys to
fuck with.”_

Somehow.

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thwest
Why didn't you join up with ARA or some other Antifa?

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gamache
It wasn't a job for ARA (Anti-Racist Action, for those playing along at home).
The hardcore gangs, as well as the skinheads, were by and large either anti-
racist (e.g. SHARP skins) or apolitical (e.g. they just like to fight).

And more broadly, I didn't want to fight these groups' existence, or even
their presence. I just wanted to come home from shows without chipped teeth,
you know?

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TarpitCarnivore
When it began spreading out of Boston and becoming more of an actual gang is
when going to hardcore shows stopped being fun for me. I was tired of having
to constantly worry about bumping into someone and see people get beat up for
no reason just became depressing.

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mhartl
As someone with deep New England roots, it's truly surreal watching a baseball
rivalry trump hundreds of years of history. To anyone outside the North,
Bostonians have long been the prototypical Yankees. But go to Southie and say
that now and you're likely to get a fist in the face.

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acconrad
Being born-and-raised in MA now living in Southie, and in spite of Southie
being gentrified a great deal as of late, I _still_ would make sure any of my
friends from outside of the city don't wear Yankees gear or say anything bad
about the Sox. Or Lakers, or Canadiens - it's also fascinating that the
biggest sports rivalries in the major sports in the US all seem to stem out
from Boston as a whole.

And yet, as crazy as these rivalries seem, it pales in comparison to soccer
rivalries like Arsenal/Manchester United, Real Madrid/Barcelona, or AC
Milan/Inter Milan. People are _dying_ at these games.

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grayclhn
It's not that surprising that the rivalries you think are the biggest sports
rivalries in North American sports stem out of Boston.

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dfan
New Year's Eve, early in the first decade of this century. I'm riding the Red
Line home with a bunch of other revelers. One young inebriated gentleman is
trying to induce the rest of us to join him in a sports-related chant. "Let's
go Red Sox!" he bellows. "Let's go Red Sox!" No one follows his lead. "Let's
go Patriots!" he essays. Crickets. One last arrow in his quiver: he begins to
chant "Yankees suck! Yankees suck!" By the time he reaches the fourth
iteration, the whole car, me included, is shouting along with him.

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hiou
Fun read. Not sure the author understands the fairly significant difference
between punk and hardcore in the late 90s.

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spmurrayzzz
I'll always remember seeing Chris Wrenn slinging those shirts in the early
2000's. Those shirts have always been synonymous with Bridge Nine records in
my mind.

It later got spun out into it's own thing:
[http://www.sullysbrand.com/](http://www.sullysbrand.com/)

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EvanKelly
I never thought the day would come where I would see Bridge Nine referenced on
Hacker News.

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careersuicide
Every time an article like this makes the front page I'm always pleasantly
surprised at the number of (usually) old hardcore punks that come out of the
woodwork and comment.

This article in particular has made me realize just how long it's been since I
listened to Ten Yard Fight.

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marcinx27
The reason I got my start in this field is because I went with a professor of
mine to check out a startup that one of his students was the CTO of. When I
got there, the former student complimented my Gorilla Biscuits shirt and
offered me an internship.

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drpgq
As a Hamiltonian and fan of the CFL's Hamilton Tiger-Cats, I'm surprised that
the Yankees Suck T-shirts aren't even that old. Ticats fans have been chanting
Argos Suck and buying T-shirts for what seems like forever. When Redhat's Bob
Young bought the team in 2003 he tried to get fans to no longer use the
phrase, but eventually gave up. I've also never seen anyone with an Argos Suck
T-shirt being booted from the stadium.

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chipgap98
As a Bostonian and someone who used to be into the hardcore scene around here,
this was an incredible read. I knew nothing about the stories behind those
shirts

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dmix
The artwork for this article is excellent.

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ChrisArchitect
you can just 'hear' the Boston.

Also, fun with dropcaps [http://mariozucca.com/projects/yankees-
suck/](http://mariozucca.com/projects/yankees-suck/)

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kyasui
As someone who spent many nights outside fenway shelling these shirts (a
generation or two after the golden era described in the article), it's great
to see some of these legendary stories collected and transcribed.

I think there's enough craziness in the stories I've heard for a decent book
or movie.

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noer
Really interesting article. Even more interesting is Bridge Nine and FSU being
referenced in HN comments.

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megaman22
Fascinating article. The pink hats and the money have made things a little
less interesting around the Boston sports scene in the last fifteen years.

