Anti-Yankees fever grips youth leagues

In the future, when kids ask their parents why none of the teams in their local youth baseball and softball leagues is named the Yankees, they will be told the story of a blood-thirsty rivalry and two persistent 9-year-old girls.

Therein lie the seeds of the so-called ''Yankee Elimination" movement sweeping though the region.

The Lowell Spinners, the Red Sox Class A affiliate, announced last week that they would foot the cost of jerseys for any youth league that was willing to change the name of its Yankees squad to the Spinners.

The response has been overwhelming. At the start of the week, the Spinners had been contacted by more than 30 baseball and softball leagues from 25 communities across Massachusetts.

On Monday morning, a call came in from Rochester, N.Y., where a team wanted to join the fun and the Spinners were happy to oblige on their rivals' home turf.

The national media have likewise jumped all over the story, including a segment that was scheduled for yesterday on ESPN's ''Cold Pizza" and a piece in this week's Sports Illustrated, according to the Spinners.

''Growing up in Natick, I was well aware of the passion involved in this rivalry," said the Spinners' director of corporate communications, Jon Goode, the brain behind this project. ''When the light bulb first came on, we knew it would grow some legs. Whether it would be the No. 1 e-mailed story on ESPN.com, I'm not sure we expected that."

But while the rest of the nation is enthralled with the story, in Dracut they are calling it old news.

One year ago, resident Karen Vergakes went to the vice president of her local youth softball league to inquire about coaching a team as her daughter moved up from the town's ''minor league" program.

The vice president chuckled and awarded her the only available franchise: the Yankees. ''We had been the Red Sox the year before and I just remember thinking there was no way we could be the Yankees," said Vergakes.

But to be sure, she ran the idea past her then 9-year-old daughter, who cringed in fear and alerted her best friend and teammate.

''I told my mom there was no way we could be the Yankees after the Red Sox had just won the World Series," said Nikki Vergakes. ''We felt like teams would try harder to beat us."

Facing forlorn faces each time her daughter and friend were together with her, Karen Vergakes sprung into action. Last February she asked league officials if she could change the team's name to the Spinners and they obliged. Karen Vergakes followed up with an e-mail to the Spinners, who invited the team onto the field before a game last summer.

Then came last week's press release from the Spinners encouraging others to eliminate the Yankees. Now nearly every town in the Merrimack Valley area, including Chelmsford, Methuen, and Tewksbury, has contacted the Spinners about the offer.

''We're a tee-ball league and we don't want to get too carried away with it, but we felt it would be fun to try," said Methuen's Joe Melia. ''It's more for the parents than the kids." Calls have also come in from Worcester to Yarmouth. Adult baseball and softball leagues have phoned to see if they can get the offer extended to them as well.

''There's even a bowling league in Beverly," said Goode. ''A 14-year-old kid called because his afternoon league named their teams after baseball teams and they've been stuck on the Yankees."

The response has been so overwhelming that the Spinners are hoping to find a sponsor to defray the cost of all these jerseys. Regardless, they will honor their promise.

The Spinners are emphatic that, in the spirit of minor league baseball, this is all in good fun. They even ran it past the staff of the rival Staten Island Yankees of the New York-Penn League to ensure no hard feelings.

The Yankees gave it their blessing, and also plan to retaliate. ''We've put some calls in to some former Red Sox who went on to have success with the Yankees," said Staten Island assistant general manager Gary Perone, who intimated that a bigger announcement was forthcoming. ''We're still planning, but whatever we do will be in a tasteful manner. We'll have fun with the rivalry."

Perone planned to meet with his local Little League presidents today to gauge their opinion on the matter, but expected the Red Sox name to be safe in the Empire State. Still, it seems some Yankees fans are hoping revenge is an eye for an eye.

''I've got a friend in New York who says he's going to get all the leagues down there to get rid of the Red Sox," said Karen Vergakes. ''He tells me how some people like Johnny Damon don't have a problem switching jerseys, but I said, 'Yeah, it's not so tough to make that switch for $13 million a year.' "

Chris Forsberg can be reached at cforsberg@globe.com.