Don't try wearing this shirt into Fenway Park this weekend. Courtesy Cafe Press

Well, this just sucks.

I was ready to drive to Boston this weekend with a trunkload of anti-Yankee T-shirts. Yankees Suck. Jeter Sucks. J'Accuse, A-Rod. Figured I'd make enough off the Jimmy Fallon types outside Fenway Park to pay off my student loans, even if a bleacher ticket remained out of reach. Then I read Thursday that the Red Sox have instituted a quasi-ban on such attire. Fans wearing "offensive" T-shirts will be asked by ticket takers to turn them inside out or cover up. "Parents are clearly looking for baseball to set good examples that they can teach their children," explained a Red Sox censor, uh, official.

Right. That explains the sport's lightning-quick response to its steroid problem. And why the Sox, like all teams, are perfectly happy to dispense enough beer every game to get Kid Rock through the night. And why TV cameras make sure to zero in on a pitcher's face a nanosecond after he allows a home run. (He's not shouting yuck, kiddies.) If baseball really wants to clean up its act, there are better places to start than T-shirts.

I'm tired of teams and leagues trying to turn every sports venue into Disneyland. (The NBA dress code David Stern proposed yesterday is a topic for another day.) The Red Sox should be thrilled to have fans passionate -- and wealthy --enough to spring for these bootleg T-shirts. I was at a Kansas City-Tampa Bay series a few years ago and don't remember seeing any Royals Rot shirts on sale. Besides, suck simply isn't that bad a word anymore. Kids hear worse on television and in PG movies. Linguists say the word has gone the way of drat and golly -- once vulgar terms that over time became acceptable. Even fencers aren't afraid to suck.

I suspect the Red Sox civility crackdown has more to do with the fact that Suck shirts are money makers for independent vendors outside Fenway, not the team-owned price gougers inside. What, there's something vulgar about a $75 sweatshirt? Hey, there's a sucker born every minute.