See, Patches will wear it.

  • See, Patches will wear it.

The plans of Break Up With LeBron to donate Clevelanders’ unwanted LeBron jerseys to Miami-area homeless shelters hit a snag last week when politics got in the way of a good deed.

According to the Broward New Times:

“It’s on hold right now,” says Rita Clark of the Miami Coalition for the Homeless. “There’s a lot of politics around this.”

The Coalition had been in talks with the Cleveland do-gooders, but ran into some resistance here in South Florida. Apparently, a marketing plan based on the concept of, Here — take a bunch of stuff we hate! wasn’t particularly appealing. Clark says she heard Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado was opposed to the donation plan.

“It seemed very well-intentioned, but it’s not gonna happen right away,” Clark says. “I’m trying to help them be better received here in Miami.”

That left many in Miami shaking their heads. Really? Shirts are shirts, right? Who cares what the officials have to say. The homeless would totally take a free LeBron Cavs jersey and wear it, right?

Miami New Times decided to conduct an experiment to answer the question.

Here’s what they found:

We happened to have an authentic wine-and-gold never-worn LeBron James Cavaliers jersey. We tore off the $59.99 price tag and headed to the area surrounding NE First Avenue in downtown — Miami’s version of Skid Row, a few blocks from LeBron’s new workplace, the American Airlines Arena.

The first shirtless bum we saw identified himself only as Patches. He’s thusly nicknamed because of the green bandanna he wraps over his left eye, rendered sightless after a botched surgery. Originally from Cuba, Patches, who wears an ancient Pizza Hut baseball cap and keeps a twig between chapped lips, says he became homeless two years ago. He was stranded in Miami after cops dragged him from his former home in Houston to face time for an old robbery warrant.

Patches had heard of LeBron James — duh — but was unaware of the controversy surrounding the jerseys. “Shit, I’ll wear anything,” he remarked and happily donned the supposedly toxic jersey. As we drove away, he catwalked an imaginary runway in front of a homeless buddy, who looked envious.

So what was that about politics? The entire quest took Riptide all of five minutes.

See, they not only want it, they’re proud to have it.

This article appears in Sep 8-14, 2010.

Vince Grzegorek has been with Scene since 2007 and editor-in-chief since 2012. He previously worked at Discount Drug Mart and Texas Roadhouse.

7 replies on “Miami Homeless Totally Want Cleveland’s LeBron Jerseys”

  1. They don’t need to officially donate it, why don’t they just drop off boxes in every ally way in Miami? Bums would surely pick them up and wear it. It’s all trash anyhow at this point. There’s no politics in garbage picking.

  2. Ah yeah just hand them out yourself, put in a box marked don’t take and they will be gone in no time. Mayor doesn’t want them to wear Cleveland tell the big man LaBron to buy all new Miami ones. This should get him some kind of title down there oh I forgot it is all about him.

  3. I just hope a bum that gets one gets videotaped wiping his ass with it, and I will be more than happy to take a load down there next time I head to Florida. I’ll gladly pass each and every one of them out

  5. jerseys are worthless to the homeless. theyre uncomfy and dont keep you warm in the winter. i say we burn em in miami to keep the homeless warm

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