Good Wednesday morning.

• We're exploring a Cambridge couple's niche Red Sox apparel brand and checking out a new design contest for public library cards.

⛅ Today's weather: Partly sunny, with a high of 52 and a low of 44.

🎂 Happy birthday to our member Matt A. Murphy!

🎸 Sounds like: "labour" by Paris Paloma, who plays Roadrunner today.

Today's newsletter is 1,056 words — a 4 minute read.

By diehard fans, for diehard fans: That's the ethos behind a Cambridge couple's side project selling local sports merch to people who already care a little too much about the Sox.

Why it matters: The Red Seat, run by designers Emily Simons and Chris Schmitt, goes for the inside joke instead of the souvenir stand.

What they're saying: "It's not the stuff that you get in the merch store," Simons told Axios.

The lore runs deep at Red Seat.

• Simons said their classic best-seller — with the simple slogan "I Loathe Pinstripes®" — focuses on the wearer's feelings rather than maligning the Yankees themselves.
• "I enjoy Boston sports." is plain white Helvetica, period included. It got a handwritten sequel this season, with "don't" and "right now" added for when the team's in the basement.

Simons said the quirky concept wouldn't work in any other city.

• "There's something special and intense and weird and different about the Boston sports market."
• Sales do dip after losses, she said, but "it's like a religion to a lot of people."

The big picture: Of course, the brand is more about how hard it is to suffer alongside the Sox than celebrating them.

• It traces to the Red Sox's heartbreaking 2003 Game 7 loss.
• Simons said she found only generic navy shirts at a souvenir shop near Fenway, so the couple made about 10 iron-on shirts for friends.
• The first shirts paired the Red Sox "B" with the words "God hates us."
• A Fenway drawing under a black cloud followed, selling on eBay for more than $50. The website launched in spring 2004.

Zoom in: Prints riff on Warhol-style Citgo signs, Fenway's color palette and fan phrenology, all without violating any corporate licenses.

• The shop's name refers to the lone red bleacher seat at Fenway Park that marks Ted Williams' record-setting long-distance 1946 home run.
• An annual calendar, sold since about 2010, carries the full Red Sox schedule plus QR codes. One links to a highlight reel of Yankees errors.

Read on for a preview of new designs

Cambridge's public library is letting patrons design a new library card.

Why it matters: Winning artwork will be printed on limited-edition cards coming in 2027.

• The design contest started last week for Minuteman Library Network cardholders who live, work or go to school in Cambridge.

Zoom in: The theme of the contest: "Adventure Awaits....at the Library!"

• They're asking for illustrations of an experience people have had at the library, like a story that swept them away, a literary world they fell into or a passion they picked up among the stacks.

By the numbers: One adult winner and one youth winner will get their art on the library card.

• They'll win a $100 gift card to Porter Square Books, courtesy of the Friends of the Cambridge Public Library.
• The deadline for entry is Sunday, Nov. 15, at 11:59pm.

What's next: Finalists' designs will be displayed online and at library branches.

• The public will then vote for the winners through the library's website.

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✊ Students from Boston-area colleges walked out of class yesterday to call for a national freeze on AI development. (Boston 25 News)

• Organizers expected students from MIT, Harvard, Northeastern, BU, Wellesley, UMass and Tufts to gather outside the State House.

💰 Boston-based AI company ASI raised $325 million in Series C funding at a $3 billion valuation. (Business Wire)

✈️ Eight finalists were named in the search for the next "Voice of Logan." (CBS News Boston)

• The winner's voice will be heard by millions of travelers at Logan Airport.

🎙️ WBUR CEO Margaret Low said she will step down at the end of June 2027. (WBUR)

🏗️ Copper Mill, the developer that won approval last year for two 18-story towers with 754 apartments on Dorchester's Morrissey Boulevard, sued landowner POB Capital.

• Copper Mill alleged POB tried to cut it out of the deal after approval.

🏫 Anna Maria College canceled its campus auction after receiving no qualified bids for the full 260-acre Paxton campus.

• The bankrupt college said it will instead pursue a bid for 2.4 acres.

🏢 Liberty Mutual told the Boston Planning Department it plans to expand its Back Bay headquarters.

• The plan includes an addition to the 157 Berkeley St. tower and a 10-story building near Stuart Street and Columbus Avenue.
• That building would replace three brick buildings, two of them dating back to 1881 and 1919.

Health care stocks have done well in recent months as investors turn toward "defensive" shares and appear to have priced in increasing odds of Democrats gaining power in the midterm elections.

Why it matters: The price moves suggest that traders and investors see increasing odds that some cuts to federal health spending imposed by President Trump's big 2025 spending bill could be undone, analysts say.

The latest: The S&P 500's health care sector is up more than 9% over the last three months, the second-best performer of the blue-chip index's 11 sectors. (Energy was the best.)

• Pharmaceutical shares like Eli Lilly, Merck and AbbVie were some of the strong contributors over that period.
• Hospital chains such as HCA and Universal Health Services (+21%), as well as insurers like Elevance Health (formerly Anthem, +15%), have also posted gains.

Zoom in: Wall Street analysts suggest that some of the peppiness in health care reflects expectations that costly cuts imposed under unified Republican control in Washington last year could be reversed, delayed or moderated if Democrats win one or both houses of Congress on Nov. 3.

Go deeper

Members of Norcal Crew compete in the men's youth eight race at the Head of the Charles Regatta in Cambridge on Oct. 18.

Deehan wants to know if you can actually feel the G-forces now that the Orange Line is hitting 55 mph north of North Station.

Steph is in the nation's capital for a minute.

This newsletter was edited by Crystal Hill.