Nice clean Sox

I'm a Red Sox fan through and through, always have been, always will be. But really, are they so strapped for cash to hire free agent Mark Teixeira that they have to stoop to rolling out a "new" logo and away jerseys in an effort to sell more merchandise? I saw the news about the new "Hanging Sox" logo and spent a little while looking at it trying to figure out what was different. Hadn't they always had a secondary logo of the two red socks with the white heel and toe?

Then I read the following:

"Certainly the 'Hanging Sox' has an iconic value that transcends anything else in our assortment of brands and logos," Red Sox chief operating officer Mike Dee said of the new logo, originally unveiled on uniforms in 1931. "To have it be defined and standing alone is certainly the right thing to do."

So let me get this straight...

You are rolling out a logo that was actually unveiled during the Great Depression (ok, can anyone else see the irony here?) and calling it new because it's not on the image of a baseball anymore?

And you want us to buy new team merchandise to display it?

I thought this type of logo change for fundraising purposes was left to teams that weren't rolling in cash (aka the Tampa Bay "Not Devil" Rays) or teams in serious need of a personality change (the Patriots switching from Pat Patriot to the Flying Elvis logo). I didn't think I'd see the Red Sox resort to this and expect anyone to seriously consider it news.