So are their customers. One emailed this to the Yankees Suck Web site: "Four bleacher seats, $400. Twelve beers, $40. Two Yankees Suck T-shirts, $40. Getting arrested, $200. Knocking out a Yankee fan's teeth: priceless."

Yankees Suck, though, is quick to denounce violence. "It's all in good fun," says one. "It's dumb," he says of fighting between fans of the two teams, "but it's not Yankees Suck's fault."

And they know some people, especially parents, are put off by the particular verb on the T-shirts. "We try to be sensitive to that. When I see kids coming, I fold up the shirts and try to shut up," one shirt vendor says. "It's all in good fun," he repeats.

The guys at Yankees Suck say they had a few problems at the beginning and still run into trouble occasionally. One tried to give a shirt to Boston Mayor Thomas Menino on Saturday, but "they picked me up and removed me."

He puts it as diplomatically as possible: "We've grown more mature with our handling of the police."

They've considered branching out, too. The Jets play the Patriots on Monday Night Football in November, and Yankees Suck is thinking of making its NFL debut with "Jets Suck" shirts at Foxboro. But there's a problem: "the thing is, the Jets really suck," one of the Yankees Suck guys explains.

And there you have it. "Yankees Suck," is, unfortunately, not a statement of fact. It's a state of mind. A form of identity. Whether or not the Yankees and Red Sox are bad or good, whether they win or lose, is immaterial.