The original Royal Rooters were a fan club for the Boston Red Sox in the early 20th century. They were led by Michael T. McGreevy, who owned a Boston saloon called "3rd Base". While M.T. "Nuf Ced" McGreevy was certainly the spiritual (in both libations and foundations) leader of the Royal Rooters, Boston Mayor John F. Fitzgerald, the maternal grandfather of John F. Kennedy, served as chairman for a while, and during that time, M.J. Regan was the secretary. Other members included C.J. Lavis, L. Watson, T. S. Dooley, J. Kennan, and W. Cahill, among others. Their theme song was "Tessie" from the Broadway musical "The Silver Slipper". Though the musical ran for less than six months, the song has gone down in history. The original Rooters disbanded in 1918.^{[citation needed]}

Their spirit lives on via the current version of the Royal Rooters represented within a group known as Royal Rooters of Red Sox Nation. The current Rooters are based in the Boston area and meet informally for Red Sox games as well as for "outings" in various locations around the country. There is a fairly large contingent in New York City, and their base has been the Riviera Café (known as "The Riv") in the West Village.

The current members of Red Sox Nation keep in touch most often through a dedicated website, Redsoxnation.net. The combination message board, fan forum, and blog has several thousand members.

History[link]

On game days the Royal Rooters marched in procession from the 3rd Base Saloon to the Huntington Avenue Grounds, which was the team’s home field before Fenway Park opened in 1912. The Rooters had a reserved section of seats along the third base line, close enough to the field to intimidate or distract opposing players with their insults and vicious taunts. The 1912 World Series went down in Rooter history. The Rooter’s seats on “Duffy’s Cliff” were sold to other fans and the Rooters became angry. Mounted police were called in to stop the riot.

"Tessie"[link]

The Rooters sang "Tessie" at games to encourage their Sox, while simultaneously distracting and frustrating the other team. They were especially important in the first World Series, in 1903, when the Red Sox played the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Royal Rooters would go to Pittsburgh and sing Tessie to distract the opposing players, especially Honus Wagner. Therefore, after falling into a 1-3 deficit, Boston rallied to win the Series with four straight victories.

The band Dropkick Murphys released a re-working of "Tessie" in 2004. Their version became the official song of the Boston Red Sox 2004 World Series run and the band was able to share in the experience of the Red Sox winning the World Series championship. Their version of "Tessie" is still sung widely throughout Red Sox games and in Red Sox Nation.

McGreevy's 3rd Base Saloon[link]

In 1894,“Nuf Ced” McGreevy opened his “3rd Base Saloon” in Boston. It was the place to be for ballplayers, politicians, and gamblers. Every inch of wall space decorated with historic pictures from Nuf Ced’s own collection and memorabilia he got from friends like Cy Young. The light fixtures were made from bats used by Red Sox stars and the painted portrait of McGreevy that hung above the bar looked down upon customers McGreevy’s was America’s first documented sports-themed bar.

In 1920 the bar was forced to close due to prohibition. He leased the saloon to the City of Boston for the “Roxbury Crossing” branch of the Boston Public library.

In 1923 McGreevy donated a majority of the plethora of memorabilia and famous baseball photography to the Boston Public Library. Sometime between 1978 and 1981 almost twenty-five percent of the collection was stolen with no leads to this day. Eighty-eight years later, in 2008, Dropkick Murphy leader Ken Casey joined forces with film producer and baseball historian Peter Nash (aka Pete Nice) to officially re-establish and re-open McGreevy’s 3rd Base Saloon at 911 Boylston St. The new McGreevy’s is a replica of the former bar. There is even a baseball museum dedicated to Boston’s history. The collection features originals and reproductions of McGreevy’s pictures on the walls and the new McGreevy’s even has on display the original glass portrait of its founder, Michael T. McGreevy.

External links[link]

• Royal Rooters of Red Sox Nation
• Red Sox Nation Fan forum and interviews from Red Sox Nation
• Boston Red Sox official site at mlb.com
• Royal Rooters Baseball League Boston-based adult baseball league named after the famed fans.
• McGreevy
• McGreevy
• McGreevy's
• Boston's Royal Rooters

Pete Nash is the creator of the football comic strip Striker, which appears daily in The Sun newspaper. In 2003 Nash, who owns the rights to the strip, parted company with The Sun in order to launch his own comic featuring the character. Despite investment from readers, the comic ceased publication in 2005.^[1] Nash has since negotiated a return to The Sun for the strip, however, it ended in September 2009.

References[link]

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Prime Minister Pete Nice (born Peter J. Nash in Floral Park, Long Island, New York) is a former hip hop MC who was most noted as a member of the group 3rd Bass.

Career[link]

After graduating from Bishop Ford High School in 1985, Nash majored in English at Columbia University, where he hosted a hip hop radio show. This led to the creation of the hip hop group 3 the Hard Way, which later changed its name to 3rd Bass, where he adopted the stage name Prime Minister Pete Nice. The group released two gold-selling albums before disbanding in 1992. Nice teamed up with group DJ Richie Rich, and the pair released their only collaboration, Dust to Dust, in 1993.

Pete Nice and author-radio jock Bobbito started their own label, Hoppoh Records, under the aegis of Columbia Records. The first release was Kurious Jorge's 1994 album A Constipated Monkey; Nice co-produced the album and the single "I'm Kurious." Nashville artist Count Bass D's debut Pre-Life Crisis followed in 1995, distributed by Columbia sister label Chaos Recordings, but those would be the only records released before the label folded because of creative differences with Columbia.

Nice quit the music business and devoted his time to baseball history. He owned a memorabilia shop in Cooperstown. In 2003, he published his first book, Baseball Legends of Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery, under his real name. He has also been working to secure some property for an official grave site of Negro League players. His brother Brian was the Head Men's Basketball Coach at St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights, New York.

In early 2008, Pete opened McGreevy's 3rd Base Bar, a sports bar in Boston with Dropkick Murphys' band member Ken Casey. The bar was recently^[when?] named Best Sports Bar In Boston by Citysearch.

Discography[link]

With 3rd Bass[link]

• The Cactus Album (1989, Gold) - on CD, known as The Cactus Cee/D
• The Cactus Revisited (1990)
• Derelicts of Dialect (1991, Gold)

With DJ Richie Rich[link]

• Dust to Dust (1993)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Arcadia Publishing
• Rapping to the Oldies - New York Times, 9/21/2006
• Bonds Baseball to Be Branded With Asterisk - New York Times, 9/27/2007
• Video: The History of Red Sox Nation - ESPN.com (via thirdbass.net), 10/25/07
• McGreevy's Boston - McGreevy's Boston, Peter Nash's Bar
• 3rd Bass Fan Site - Pete Nice/3rd Bass Fan Site
• Citysearch Boston's Best Sports Bar, McGreevey's 3rd Bass Bar - Citysearch Boston's Best Sports Bar, McGreevey's 3rd Bass Bar
• [1] - From rapper to baseball collector, the wild tale of Peter Nash, SportsIllustrated.com, 12/9/2009