Six years ago this week, David Ortiz lingered around the mound as the Red Sox wrapped up an emotional pregame ceremony in their first game at Fenway Park following the Boston Marathon bombings.
It was April 20, 2013. The sold-out crowd had just finished singing the national anthem in unison. Ortiz was one of three players to catch ceremonial first pitches from a group of first responders and bombing survivors.
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He announced an unexpected uniform change.
“This jersey we are wearing today, it doesn’t say, ‘Red Sox’, it says, ‘Boston,’” Ortiz said. “We want to thank Mayor Menino, Gov. Patrick, the whole police department for the great job they did this past week. This is our fucking city, and nobody is going to dictate our freedom. Stay strong. Thank you.”
The latter part of Ortiz’s short speech rocketed into instant fame. But the first part — that part about abandoning the jerseys with the “Red Sox” script that had been their traditional home garb for decades — is a lesser known story that’s become as much a part of Marathon Monday as the 11 a.m. game time.
In many ways, social media played a pivotal role in connecting, informing and organizing efforts on the ground in Boston in the week following the bombings. It also played a big role in the Sox’ uniform change.
The “Boston Strong” mantra on Twitter and Instagram was popularized when Red Sox infielder Will Middlebrooks retweeted fans’ comments of support with the #BostonStrong hashtag.
The Red Sox, who were headed to the airport after their game at Fenway when the bombs went off on April 15, 2013, tried to support the city from afar during their ensuing three-game series in Cleveland. They hung a Red Sox jersey with the “617” Boston area code on its back in the visitors dugout, and wrote Boston Strong on their cleats and hats.
Back home, the suspects were still on the loose and a mixture of heartbreak and angst blanketed the city. While processing their own emotions about a tragedy that happened a mile from Fenway, Red Sox staff knew the team needed a plan, both to comfort the city and to honor victims, survivors and first responders when the games resumed at Fenway later in the week.
Meghan Ryan, the team’s social media director at the time, passed along an idea to the front office.
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“She was saying there are a lot of people on social that are chiming in saying it’d be cool for you guys to wear Boston jerseys at home,” Red Sox executive vice president and chief marketing officer Adam Grossman said. “She came to us and said, ‘Hey, this is what we’re seeing it’d be really cool to be able to do this.’”
It may seem like an easy fix to remove “Red Sox” from the front of the home white jerseys and add “Boston,” but the timeframe in which they had to work was extremely tight. The attacks happened Monday. The Red Sox were scheduled to host the Royals on Friday night.
The club still had to get approval from MLB and then had to coordinate with the league’s official uniform company, Majestic.
“When this went down, the league has really strict deadlines of when you can change uniforms and it’s like a year in advance,” said Troup Parkinson, the Sox executive vice president of partnerships. “You’re really going to the league and asking their permission, and even see if it’s possible.”
While patches are often sewn on to jerseys last minute, authorizing and creating a brand-new jersey in less than a week is virtually unheard of. But, in one of the most unusual weeks in Boston’s history, the response was unusually quick.
Clearance arrived and the uniforms were hastily created. Majestic used the home white material for Red Sox jerseys and cut out the red Boston lettering for the front. Each jersey also had a ‘B Strong’ patch over the heart. Majestic then made extra patches for the Royals uniforms.
Getting those uniforms to the park was the next hurdle, however. The tight turnaround created issues for shipping them. So Andy Davis, a marketing manager for MLB who works with the Red Sox, picked up the uniforms from the Majestic factories in Easton, Penn., and drove them five hours to Boston in time for the team’s arrival on Friday.
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Friday’s game, however, was postponed because the city went into lockdown as the manhunt for the Marathon bombing suspects reached a climax. One suspect had been killed in a shootout in the wee hours of Friday morning. The surviving suspect was apprehended later that night around 8 p.m. The Red Sox were then cleared to play Saturday’s game. Debuting those Boston home jerseys, the Red Sox beat the Royals 4-3, thanks to a three-run homer in the eighth inning from Daniel Nava.
“Everything that was supposed to happen did happen,” Parkinson said. “People didn’t worry about deadlines and how you should handle stuff. Everyone realized it was much bigger than that conversation, so it was sort of a huge effort.”
The Boston home jerseys were so well received and meaningful that the team, with the blessing of MLB and Majestic, decided to make it a yearly tradition. Every Marathon Monday since 2013, the Red Sox have rolled out the Boston home jerseys.
Each year, the jerseys have been auctioned off to raise money for the Red Sox Foundation.
Clubhouse manager Tommy McLaughlin collects the jerseys worn after every Marathon Monday game and organizes them to be signed by the players.
“We don’t launder them, we give them to our authenticator as is,” McLaughlin said. “They get stickered, there’s a whole process they go through to authenticate them as ‘game worn.’”
It’s an apt description, Red Sox senior director of community and player relations Sarah Narracci said.
“They’re dirty and they’re wet and sweaty and gross,” she said.
Dustin Pedroia is the only player left on the Red Sox who wore the Boston jersey when it debuted in 2013. (Bob DeChiara / USA Today)
The community relations team works with MLB authenticators to ensure the process is done properly.
“Typically what we do is that (Marathon Monday) is most often a travel day, so we’ll set up in the back parking lot and (McLaughlin will) bring them out,” Narracci said. “We’ll hang them on a rack and when guys come out, the authenticator will be there and we’ll have them sign them. Normally we’d have them sign (inside) their numbers, but they sign under the Boston and then they get authenticated and go to the Red Sox Foundation.”
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Last year, the Marathon Monday game was rained out. In those instances, the jerseys are not worn in the rescheduled game later in the year. Rather, they are signed and auctioned off as ‘game issued’ as opposed to “game worn.”
“We decided not to wear them (again) because they’re so specific to the day,” McLaughlin said.
This year, Marathon Monday falls on Jackie Robinson Day. So these home jerseys will not only have Boston on the front, but the number 42 on the back to commemorate Robinson.
The players have changed over the past six years (Dustin Pedroia is the only active Red Sox player who played in that first post-Marathon attack game), but the Marathon jerseys have remained a constant.
“A lot of guys ask why we wear them,” McLaughlin said. “We try to make sure they know, so I’d like to think they appreciate it.”
If McLaughlin has his way, they’ll keep wearing the Marathon jerseys for years to come.
“I hope it does (remain),” McLaughlin said. “I never want to see it go away out of all the traditions we have because of what that year meant to the city.”
(Top photo: Barry Chin / Getty Images)
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