Latest news with #Procopio
Boston Globe
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Meet the Massachusetts man (and lifelong Red Sox fan) who designs and delivers the team's beloved T-shirts
Consider it a physical manifestation of the camaraderie and vibes that have developed over the summer. Advertisement 'I feel like we lead the league in T-shirts right now,' said hitting coach Peter Fatse, something of a ringleader in this accidental trend. 'It's one of those morale boosters over the course of a season. It's a long year. When you have things like that that rejuvenate the guys, they see something new in their locker, it's fun.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Jarren Duran said: 'Those kinds of T-shirts mean something happened to have us make those T-shirts. So we all know the joke behind it or the story behind it.' Related : And Trevor Story: 'It's kind of our brand of baseball. We're telling a little story through the shirts. Paul does an amazing job of making that come to life. It's something cool that I think a lot of guys love to rep, and we appreciate it.' Advertisement The origin centers around Procopio and Fatse. Procopio, 36, long has known the Fatse family through Western Mass. baseball circles, and he has known Peter specifically for more than a decade, since he helped outfit Fatse's teams at his former local training facility with uniforms and gear. During spring training, Fatse reached out to Procopio, who last year turned his screen printing/embroidery company, Primo Products, into a full-time gig. Fatse sought stuff displaying his '9-on-1' philosophy — nine batters against one pitcher — for his hitters, and Procopio came through. That was the first of at least eight shirts in the Procopio/Red Sox partnership. Pitching coach Andrew Bailey has requested a couple, including a Crochet-inspired iteration that says 'Beast,' which is the ace's catch-all nickname for his teammates (and, in turn, their fitting nickname for him). Justin Willard, director of pitching, had Procopio fashion shirts that read 'Fuego' on the front and feature Pedro Martinez on the back, a trophy of sorts for any pitcher in the organization who reaches 100 miles per hour with his fastball. 'I've just become known,' Procopio said in a telephone interview, 'as Pete's guy.' In early July, when Gonzalez described himself — fairly — as feeling 'tremendously locked in' at the plate, Story loved it. He decided that such a sentiment needed to be commemorated. Working with Procopio to turn it into a shirt, they settled on Miami Vice-style pink and blue lettering (a nod to Gonzalez's hometown) for that quote across the front, plus Gonzalez's No. 23 on the back. Romy Gonzalez said the "Tremendously Locked In" T-shirt was the first time he had been celebrated in a clubhouse like that. Courtesy/Paul Procopio Gonzalez, a role player enjoying by far the best of his five seasons in the majors, said it was the first time he was celebrated in such a way by his club. Advertisement 'There's different ways to build up your teammates. That's a way that I've found,' Story said. 'It's just a way to make him feel good, but also it's part of our team. It's a little bit of a mantra, too. It came about organically and that's the best part about it.' Gonzalez said: 'I thought it was sick.' A few weeks later, Procopio hit Fatse with a question: 'What is going on in the clubhouse right now?' What was buzzy? What would make for a fun shirt? 'Everybody,' Fatse told him, 'is saying, 'Turbulence.' ' The team's plane ride from Boston to Minneapolis on July 27 was fraught. Bad weather forced the team to land in Detroit. Many players got sick. The effects impacted them and others into That infamous flight, harrowing in the moment, has become hilarious in hindsight. 'One of the funniest things is Greg Weissert . . . on the crazy plane ride,' Duran said. 'We were about to land and then we had to re-circle around for like 30 more minutes. He just kept talking about, 'I love the grind. Keep giving it to me. When you think you're done grinding, you're still grinding.' That kind of stuff is funny. People are dying, people are throwing up, people are running to the bathroom. He's over there just absolutely loving every bit of the chaos. 'Little stories like that is what makes teams really close. Even though we were on a crazy plane ride, we have some stuff to laugh about.' Related : Then it became a rallying cry — and an on-base celebration, players extending their arms like plane wings and pretending to teeter after a hit. Advertisement Procopio got to work. His final design featured 'Turbulence' written across the front, an outline on each side of a player doing the arms-out call to the dugout, and, naturally, the head of Wally the Green Monster. About 48 hours later, he made the two-hour drive to Fenway Park to hand-deliver the fresh product. 'I don't know how he does it, but he gets it within two days to us,' Fatse said. 'Boom.' For Procopio — who normally works with youth, high school or college teams, and a wide range of other companies who need branded apparel — this has been good business, sure. But it also is sort of unreal. He always has been a big baseball guy, playing at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams and helping coach his alma mater, Taconic High in Pittsfield, to three state titles. He was in high school for the 2004 and 2007 championships. And now the Red Sox are wearing his stuff? Every day? It is so popular among players that on Thursday he sent out another batch of Beast shirts for the hitters and Turbulence shirts for the pitchers. Each group was envious of the other. 'When was the last time you saw Jarren Duran in just a classic Red Sox baseball shirt? He's always wearing different crazy things,' Procopio said. '[In conversation with Fatse] I'm like, dude, Trevor Story makes like $20 million a year. There's no way he's like, 'Man, I love this Turbulence shirt,' right? The experience I've had is holy [expletive], he is right, these guys are wearing it everywhere. It's all they wear.' Advertisement There may well be more to come. Procopio didn't want to spoil too much — or jinx it. 'If the Sox make the playoffs,' he said, 'there are some things in the works.' Tim Healey can be reached at
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
State employee protections will go before Louisiana voters
A sign directs voters to a polling place at Edward Hynes Charter School in New Orleans' Lakeview neighborhood on Nov. 8, 2022. (Greg LaRose/Louisiana Illuminator) Louisiana voters will get to weigh in next on whether civil service protections should be removed from certain state employees, though it's not certain the measure will result in current government workers losing their status. Senate Bill 8, sponsored by Sen. Jay Morris. R-West Monroe, received final passage Wednesday in the Senate on a 28-9 party-line vote. The proposal is a constitutional amendment that will be placed on a ballot April 18, 2026, pending approval of a separate bill to set that election date. Morris' bill would give state lawmakers power that currently rests with the Civil Service Commission, a seven-member independent review panel that oversees the hiring, promotion and firing of 39,000 'classified' state workers. The commission, working with state agencies on staffing goals, has the power to create and eliminate job positions and decide which jobs should have a protected status and which should not. Classified employees enjoy some degree of protection against politically motivated or otherwise unfair terminations and disciplinary practices because they have the right to appeal such decisions to the Civil Service Commission, which has the final say on staffing matters for most state agencies. Although there was debate and confusion earlier in the week over whether the bill would apply to current classified employees or just future-hires, Morris said in an interview Thursday it could affect current employees 'to a degree.' 'Obviously, it can affect future employees. That's obvious,' he said. 'But it can affect existing employees.' The degree to which it will affect current employees would depend on how the Legislature decides to use the amendment if voters adopt it. Morris said lawmakers would still need to pass a new statute that contains those specifics. 'Any bill passed would have to be carefully constructed to avoid any issues of an unconstitutional taking' of an existing employee's job, he said. Steven Procopio, president of the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana (PAR), a state government watchdog group, said the amendment would give lawmakers power to determine which state employees should be removed from classified civil service. Whether they choose to take it that far remains to be seen, he said. 'Does it affect current employees?' Procopio said. 'I think it's technically possible. You can do it, but there has to be due process applied.' There is a legal precedent from a court case that could require some level of due process before currently classified employees can be fired, he added. 'PAR is for civil service reforms, but I am concerned this doesn't provide enough safeguards,' Procopio said. At any rate, the matter could end up in court before the election over the proposal's ballot language, which does not mention the 'classified' civil service and could mislead voters into thinking it doesn't apply to those workers. The ballot language states: 'Do you support an amendment to allow the legislature to remove or add officers, positions, and employees to the unclassified civil service?' Lawmakers based the ballot language off of a current constitutional provision that states: 'Additional positions may be added to the unclassified service and those positions may be revoked by rules adopted by a commission.' All state employees are classified unless their job falls under one of the 13 unclassified positions listed in the Louisiana Constitution. 'I think that the ballot language could be misleading,' Sen. Royce Duplessis, D-New Orleans, said, noting that the state constitution specifically allows for legal challenges in such situations. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
