Red Sox yell “HEPATITIS C YOU LATER” after a Mike Napoli homer

Mike Napoli hit a very long home run Tuesday night. When he came back to the dugout, his teammates greeted him with an interesting celebration (via Barstool Sports)

You see, they’re saying “See you later,” but they’re also saying “Hepatitis” beforehand. Get it? It’s like that hilarious disease, “Hepatitis C,” but also like “see you later,” which is what you’d say to a ball you hit a long way.

Let’s cut the Red Sox some slack. On the one hand, they’re making a low-level pun that happens to include a joke about a really deadly disease. On the other, you could say they’re raising awareness about a deadly disease through jokes. Let’s learn about Hepatitis C. Take it away, Wikipedia!

It is estimated that 150–200 million people, or ~3% of the world’s population, are living with chronic hepatitis C.[2][3][4] About 3–4 million people are infected per year, and more than 350,000 people die yearly from hepatitis C-related diseases.[3] During 2010 it is estimated that 16,000 people died from acute infections while 196,000 deaths occurred from liver cancer secondary to the infection.[89] Rates have increased substantially in the 20th century due to a combination of intravenous drug abuse and reused but poorly sterilized medical equipment.You could call us a stuck-up buzzkill for not laughing at Boston’s not-funny joke. To each his own. That said, we suggest the Red Sox, an organization that prints money, should head over to this website and make a nice hefty donation to the American Liver Foundation. Or they could just do nothing while their players laugh about a disease that’s probably killed thousands of their fans. Either/or.