MLB Releases New Era ‘Stars and Stripes’ Hats for Fourth of July (Photo)

Each year, Major League Baseball celebrates the Fourth of July by wearing special made hats that reflect the Stars and Stripes of the American flag. You don’t have to be an overly patriotic person to appreciate baseball on America’s birthday, as there’s nothing more embedded in Americana than the National Past time. Football may be the most popular sport in the country, but baseball is and has been the sport of America for over a hundred years and being able to take in a game on the Fourth of July is something truly special.

So naturally the folks in charge of Major League Baseball and New Era want to mark the occasion and they do so very subtly by inserting the American flag within the logos of the teams that play on the Fourth of July. There isn’t a huge change to the way the hats look, but not everyone will be pleased with the results.

Overall the design is cool, but the hats just leave something to be desired. It’s not the flag pattern, rather it’s the weird choice of hat color. The white and grey look is a bit off putting and it clashes with the logos and the Stars and Stripes design embedded in the logo.

An interesting hat belongs to the Toronto Blue Jays who will be hosting a game in Canada against the Detroit Tigers. Instead of forcing the American flag onto the hat of a Canadian team, Major League Baseball threw the Canada flag on the hat and it’s probably the only hat that looks decent. The white and red look just like the Canadian flag and it’s a sleek looking hat.

There’s also the matter of the Cleveland Indians hat, as Chief Wahoo having the background of his logo be the American flag is painfully and terrifyingly ironic and unfortunate.

Not all of the hats this year look terrible, but over all there needs to be something closer to the patterned background design baseball went with a few years ago  and whoever decided that grey was a good color choice needs to find a new job far away from the fashion world.