In the autumn of 1912, Isabella Stewart Gardner made the news for combining two things she loved—classical music and the Boston Red Sox. The gossip magazine Town Topics covered her bold decision to attend a Boston Symphony Orchestra concert wearing custom Sox regalia that may have resembled the hat bands in this picture from the Boston Public Library, showing the die-hard Royal Rooters:
Jerry McCarthy with Rooters, 1912 World Series
Courtesy of the Digital Commonwealth
That Mrs. Jack Gardner should resort to such sensational methods to keep herself before the public eye as to wear in public a white band with “Oh, You Red Sox,” in red letters on it, looks as if the woman had gone crazy. With this band bound like a fillet around her auburn hair, she appeared in her conspicuous seat at a recent Saturday night Symphony Concert, almost causing a panic among those in the audience who discovered the ornamentation, and even for a moment upsetting [the orchestra members] so that their startled eyes wandered from their music stands.
— Town Topics, Volume 68, July–December 1912, p. 6
The Red Sox had just won the 1912 World Series against the New York Giants (now the San Francisco Giants). Isabella followed the championship closely. Her museum guest book for 1912 includes a page where visiting friends wrote notes about the on-going Series, and she pasted in articles about the team’s win.
Among the clippings is a diagram of the championship-winning play : a sacrifice fly ball hit by outfielder Larry Gardner (no relation). On the top of the page, Gardner herself penned the phrase she would later sport on her headband, “Oh, you Red Sox!”
“Clash of Championship Series: Gardner’s Long Fly to Devore…,” 17 October 1912. Newspaper clipping in Isabella Stewart Gardner’s Guest Book Volume XII. Isabella’s inscription of “Oh You Red Sox!” in Guest Book Volume XII