[This post is part of Uni Watch Positivity Week. You can learn more about that here, and you can see all the UWPW posts here. — PL]
Don’t look now, but Independence Day is just three weeks away, so MLB has just released all of this year’s caps, which will be worn on July 4. Two of the designs — the ones for the Cubs and the Tigers — had previously leaked, but this is our first look at the entire set:
As you can see, all the caps are either red or navy, with a home plate-shaped side patch featuring the team’s city and “USA” (except for the Blue Jays, who are continuing their recent practice of wearing interlocked Canadian and American flags).
You can get a closer look at each design in this slideshow:
The design approach is similar to the one used in 2018. Here’s what teams wore that year, courtesy of a SportsLogos.net graphic:
As you can see, the 2018 designs all had the stars in the upper-left portion of the logo — sort of a “one size fits all” approach that felt forced for many of the logos — while this year’s designs tried to integrate the stars and stripes more organically into each team logo. While I’m not a huge fan of these holiday caps in general, I do think this year’s cap logos are much more interesting than their 2018 counterparts, so at least that’s a mild improvement.
Good start on finding the positive! You’re right; slightly better.
Agreed! For a moment I thought, “I guess Paul likes these!” I agree these caps are much better, though I wish they’d do away with the red caps and have everyone be in the dark blue instead.
What I like about the 2018 version is the AL/NL patch instead of this home plate thing, but all in all an opportunity hat that I will not buy any time soon. The mentioning of the town on top of the plate looks very odd, I think. I do agree that the distribution of the stars and stripes does look better this year than in 2018.
In my opinion, an improvement would be to keep the logos as is but instead use the team’s usual base color for the hat.
Did anyone else notice the gold outline doesn’t go all the way around the Blue Jays cap logo. It stops at the maple leaf.
Well this is gonna drive me nuts. All of the teams with interlocking letters have one letter with stars and one letter with stripes EXCEPT the Yankees.
I’m with you, it’s so weird
Noticed this immediately as well
The Brewers hat is by far the most improved, in my opinion. The way that the stars make up the B, and the stripes make up the M is genius.
“New themed hats released. Pictures included”
This Diamond Backs version is much more pleasing in blue than the ’18 red cap.
The crossed flags on the Blue Jays cap is a detail I like as well.
In the case of the Blue Jays, could it be said that this would be a good reason to try to get a team back in Montreal, so they could each have a Canada Day (Jour du Canada) cap?
Ideally, they would always play each other on Canada Day, right?
That would be awesome. On the subject, do you like the Nationals/Expos throwbacks?
Yes, of course!
I can imagine Paul’s eye twitching as he chants to himself, “Positivity Week. Positivity Week. Of COURSE they release these on this week.”
I’m just imaging a week full of Merch Dump leaks and releases.
And will calling something “positively awful” count?
I find the placement of stars and stripes in the logos pretty solid, except of the Phillies. Rendered that way it doesn’t even look like a P.
Another positive is that they managed to release the Blue Jays hat design without mistakenly putting the American flag all over it.
Too bad someone didn’t have the thought to give the A’s a blue cap instead of the red. Then again, their bright green might not play so nicely with navy blue, but it’d be better then pairing red with it.
How they continue to roll out this unnecessary garbage merchandise is beyond me. A simple American Flag patch on the side of the cap would be much more powerful and symbolic of our great nation’s independence. I guess as long as people will keep buying these items, they will continue to produce them and sell them.
And how does New Era/MLB decide which teams are designated red versus blue? Do they rotate each year amongst teams? It seems like the Minnesota Twins have been getting the red cap designation in recent years when it would make more sense to give them a navy blue cap which would be much more natural and fitting for their uniform. Have the Yankees ever had the red cap?
I believe the idea is to make very game red vs. blue.
I just did a breakdown of the games in a spreadsheet by color. First, there are 16 blue caps and 14 red caps, so already we’re not getting all red vs. blue.
The long and short of it is that there are six blue vs. blue games and five red vs. red games, leaving just four with red vs. blue (two with red at home, two with blue at home).
There’s also no league/division sorting – the NL East, NL Central, and AL Central all are three red to two blue, while the AL East has four blue to one red, and the AL and NL West each have three blue to two red.
Rendering one letter in stars and the other in stripes (or for Houston, the letter and the star) shows a little more thought than most of the merch dump designs. Couple this with the Memorial Day approach this year, and maybe MLB is starting to Get It.
Keepin’ it positive.
I know the positivity thing is going on, but I’m so sick of the Tigers having red stars and stripe hats. Why are they stuck with red EVERY year such a mismatch with any home/away uniform for the 4th. Never Going to purchase!
I totally agree. Why do they ALWAYS have a red cap?
If these get worn on Sunday July 2, I’m calling it Jingo Domingo
The crossed flag on the Jays cap reminded me of what you at one time saw once in a while on some ‘varsity’ jackets (both sports and organizations ones).
Either the U.S & Canadian flags crossed, or going back before my time the Union Jack and U.S flags.
Why is the Arizona hat blue? Their colors include red and black, so a better color would have been the red, even if it’s a different shade of red.
I wonder if doing away with the AL and NL patches is a sign they’re getting serious about realignment.
Interesting observation, you spotted it first.