St. Louis T-Shirt Maker Inspires Chicago Copycats; White Sox Manager a Fan

Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen might not know it, but he's a fan of St. Louis-based Rina Wear clothing company.

The Chicago Tribune reports that prior to today's inter-league match between the White Sox and Cubs at Wrigley Field, Guillen came across a street vendor selling T-shirts with a cartoon likeness of himself cutting grass. The shirt read, "Ozzie Guillen Mows Wrigley Field."

Instead of being insulted by the clothing, Guillen purchased a shirt and proudly wore it into Wrigley. "I might cut lawns, but I don't stand in the rain selling T-shirts," a laughing Guillen told the Tribune.

Funny how that T-shirt sounds an awful lot like the following Rina Wear shirt poking fun at Cubs pitcher Carlos Zambrano.
This afternoon I called Rina Wear owner Jeff Michel to see if he had anything to do with the Guillen T-shirt.

"Nope," he says. "That's someone up in Chicago who basically took our idea. We came up with the Zambrano shirt three years ago, but it recently made news up in Chicago when it got linked to some blogs. Now I hear that Wrigley Field vendors are selling the exact same T-shirt except it says, 'Pujols Mows My Lawn.' Real original, I know."

Still, Michel is glad to hear that Guillen gets the humor in the T-shirt. "Society is so politically correct these days. It's good to see someone gets the joke and is able to laugh it off."

Then again, no one has ever accused Guillen of being p.c.

Oh, and Michel informs me that soon he'll offer T-shirts to insult fans of every team. He's currently in the process of launching yourteamsucks.biz, a website that will offer clothing poking fun at any and all sports teams.

"It was too easy picking on the Cubs all the time," explains Michel. "The new site will let us open it up to all teams. Yes, including even the Cardinals."

P.S. As of this posting at 3:30 p.m. the White Sox lead the Cubs 3-0 in the eighth inning. Now, who mows whose lawn??