“A guy from Southie called me up, and he was just fuckin’ furious; Screaming at me that this cover is the worst thing that’s ever happened in Boston.”
I was on our weekly BINJ livestream earlier this week, showing off some of the items that we will be auctioning off at our upcoming Nov. 8 fundraiser in Cambridge, when I noticed something shocking (in the sense that it made me feel old).
Holding up a legendary cover from October 2005 that features a guy in a Sox jersey kissing a dude in Yankees pinstripes, I realized that 20 years have passed since I was an intern at the Dig, the Boston alternative newspaper also known under a few other names that I wound up co-publishing until it shuttered two years ago.
Toward the end of my time there, when it was called DigBoston, we commissioned longtime contributor Barry Thompson to compile an oral history of the publication. It’s amazing and hilarious, and I hope to help turn it into a book some day, but for now those interested can catch up on the Internet Archive.
The following, about the iconic photo by Kelsey Bennett, is excerpted from a section titled “The True Story Behind The Most Viral Dig Cover Story To Date” …
TAK TOYOSHIMA (art director): One cover I definitely remember was the one everybody wrote about; The Red Sox/Yankees guys kissing at Fenway. It was kind of a perfect storm moment. Gay marriage was on the ballot. When you get a cover like that, it sticks with you for a while.
KELSEY BENNETT (intern photographer): Coming from New York, I was very taken by the sports fanaticism in Boston. I feel like you don’t really experience that fanaticism in New York unless you’re around Yankee Stadium. But when I moved to Boston, I felt like the fantasticism is in your face wherever you go. Around that time there was a riot that went on around Yawkey Way that had to do with one of the games, and there was a police officer who shot a rubber bullet and it hit this college student and killed her. I was really taken back and upset by that, and just kind of reacting to how extreme that was. That’s basically what that cover is about.
JOE KEOHANE (editor): A guy from Southie called me up, and he was just fuckin’ furious; Screaming at me that this cover is the worst thing that’s ever happened in Boston. So I’m winding him up, and I say, “Wait, you’re saying this is worse than busing?” He yells, “This is 10 times worse than busing!” and hangs up.
BENNETT: So many people were taken aback, but I feel like the focus was all on the two men kissing. There wasn’t even room to explore the real reason why I took the photo. It became about sexual identity rather than anything else. But, I mean, people have this objection to love between two people of the same gender. Why can’t they just accept love? For that matter, why can’t some people just enjoy themselves and not take this sports rivalry to this next level where violence is incited? It’s a conceptual piece, so there’s no concrete, literal way to explain it. But all that’s tied up in there. It was my way of expressing the sentiment, “Why can’t we all get along?” I remember there were bodegas in South Boston that refused to carry the issue. I definitely didn’t set out to create that kind of reaction, but my favorite sort of art is controversial, so if I created something that caused a controversy, I felt satisfied by that.
JEFF LAWRENCE (publisher): One of the things that Lipson used to always say was, “You need to send me the cover.” I’d say, “But I have creative control.” He was like, “I know. I just wanna see it. Thank you.” And I said, “Fine, I’ll send it to you.” Then I wouldn’t send it. And I did that for two years. I never sent him a cover before it went to press. When that cover hit the street, he lost his fucking mind. “Worst decision! You’re fucking with us!” It took him about 48 hours once it went literally worldwide before he called us and said, “Eh, maybe I was wrong.”
DAVID LIPSON (CEO of Metro Corp., the owning company at the time): I thought that cover was awesome. Our whole business is creating buzz and conversation, so that didn’t bother me at all. That was one of the high points.
