craftgrrl | Kind of odd t-shirt surgery help?

I'm a long time member (I like seeing what ya'll do :) ) but first time poster, and a t-shirt surgery novice. I have a Sunday season ticket plan with the Philadelphia Phillies and my seats are in left field. Unfortunately there is no shade what so ever out there, and even though it's barely June I've already been to two games where it has been oppressively hot. I want to make my Shane Victorino shirt which is a lot like this one:

into a halter top, but I want to keep the name and number on the back. I don't have a sewing machine, so I'm looking for something that I can maybe do by hand stitching (which I've only done once or twice) and was wondering if you guys had any suggestions about how I could go about it. The shirt is big, about a size too large for me because I really needed a dry shirt (yay rain delay!) and that's all they had. I'm looking forward to your suggestions and help! Thanks so much in advanced.

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