"steinbrenner creates a partial vacuum with his mouth!"

You know, he sucks. Which is what the Yankee faithful chanted in 1982, when former Yankee hero Reggie Jackson smashed a home run after the Yanks let him go to the opposing California Angels. "Sucks" was too risque to print in Sports Illustrated, so they rephrased it for publication.

Now, over 20 years later, the Red Sox organization is asking fans to turn inside out shirts that say, "Yankees Suck!" Which I have no problem with -- private business and all that. But it's interesting that the word still is seen as sexually vulgar.

I remember saying, "That sucks!" ages ago and my mom busting out my first and middle name to show her disapproval. (All three of my names were hissed when I was 18 and let loose the F-bomb in her presence.) I think I was 13 or 14 and I really didn't know why it was supposed to be so awful. To me, now, it seems like it has been cleared of all the sexual connotations and just means something really, really stinks. (Like the Yankees.)

I have been known to refer to the sexual meaning by embellishment, however. I said, "That sucks like Monica Lewinsky!" for a while. That's making a definite sexual reference, to me. Probably somewhere in between inoffensive and offensive is, "That sucks like a Hoover!" Although I might have to change that to "Dyson" in this day and age.