Nike Pulls ‘Boston Massacre’ T-Shirts from Shelves

The sports retailer yanked the “Boston massacre” t-shirts that commemorated the New York Yankees' series sweeps against the Boston Red Sox.

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Eric Stangel / Associated Press

An undated photo provided by Eric Stangel of the Nike shirt for sale at a Nike Outlet store.

Sports retailer Nike has pulled a T-shirt that some shoppers might find insensitive in light of the recent events in Boston, the Huffington Post reported.

The T-shirt — with the words “Boston Massacre” emblazoned on the front, and what looks like blood splattered across the letters — was spotted by Late Show with David Letterman executive producer and writer Eric Stangel at a Nike Outlet store over the weekend.

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Stangel tweeted a picture of the shirt on Saturday, and noted that the salespeople told him they were taking the shirts off the racks.

As ABC News points out, the shirts were created for New York Yankees fans to commemorate a legendary 1978 sweep at Fenway Park which helped eliminate Boston from World Series contention. New York would do it again in 2006 — the second ‘Boston Massacre.’ (It’s also a play on the infamous 1770 attack on Boston civilians by British soldiers that helped fuel the American Revolutionary War.)

The T-shirts were made long before the Boston Marathon bombings, and Yahoo! Sports notes that their association with the tragedy was never intended by Nike.

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A spokesperson for the Beaverton, Ore.-based company said in a statement to the Huffington Post that it was aware of the issue:

“The shirts being referenced are older baseball shirts that were predominantly being sold through our Factory Stores Outlets.  In light of the tragedy in Boston we took immediate action last week to remove this product from distribution. We conducted this process as quickly as possible and are confident the product has been removed from distribution.”

But Stengal sent a second tweet quoting Nike Outlet employees as saying, “We’ve been taking them down… But somehow they keep ending up back on the rack.”

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