Once upon a time, wearing a Yankees hat in New England was an invitation for heckling at best and a threat to your physical safety at worst. In the early 2000s, you couldn’t walk past a sports store in the area without seeing shirts for sale that read, “I support two teams: The Red Sox and whoever beats the Yankees,” among others emblazoned with words I cannot type here.

Most people would agree that the (mostly one-sided) rivalry has since faded, given that the Sox put up three World Series wins in ten years and Boston fans could maybe start to be a little less heartbroken and angry all the time.

But David Alcantara, a Rhode Island man sentenced to five years in federal prison for committing bank fraud and conspiracy to pass counterfeit currency, doesn’t think it’s faded enough, according to Universal Hub. In fact, he thinks it’s what got him convicted. He was wearing a Yankees hat when he committed the crimes, a fact that was mentioned several times during his trial.

Alcantara appealed his conviction, and, among other arguments, said that his hat prejudiced the jury, which he assumed was full of Red Sox fans. But the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit was not buying it:

As an initial matter, all but two of the cited references occurred during defense counsel’s cross-examination. In any event, this testimony, like the references to luxury vehicles discussed above, was relevant to the witnesses’ knowledge of Alcantara and his appearance. Any possibility of unfair prejudice was ameliorated when the district court explicitly instructed the Rhode Island jury not to hold Alcantara’s wearing of a Yankees hat against him.

Red Sox 1, Yankees 0.