This year’s MLB batting practice caps (not to be confused with the spring training caps or the clubhouse caps) have just been released. Most of these have already leaked via various channels, so they’ll look familiar, but today is the official unveiling.
Four teams — the Dodgers, Mets, White Sox, and Yankees — have two separate caps. Surprisingly, the Tigers’ grey design, which we’d previously seen, is their only BP cap. Most people, myself included, had assumed that the grey design would be for road games and that there’d be a corresponding white version to wear at home, but that appears not to be the case.
National League East
Atlanta
Miami Marlins
New York Mets
Philadelphia Phillies
Washington Nationals
National League Central
Chicago Cubs
Cincinnati Reds
Milwaukee Brewers
Pittsburgh Pirates
St. Louis Cardinals
National League West
Arizona Diamondbacks
Colorado Rockies
Los Angeles Dodgers
San Diego Padres
San Francisco Giants
American League East
Baltimore Orioles
Boston Red Sox
New York Yankees
Tampa Bay Rays
Toronto Blue Jays
American League Central
Chicago White Sox
Cleveland Guardians
Detroit Tigers
Kansas City Royals
Minnesota Twins
American League West
Houston Astros
Los Angeles Angels
Oakland A’s
Seattle Mariners
Texas Rangers
Love that 80’s Giants logo. That logo era is the basis of my membership card.
That Guardians cap reminds me of something I would find at a gas station.
man if only they had put the C on there..
1) Why does the Atlanta hat appear to be black?
2) Odd that the Met, Red, Tiger and Guardian designs seem to mimic jersey striping mainly used in the 1970s-1990s. The Met home cap is a fail IMO, as it uses the racing stripe horizontally, which makes no sense to me. It was essentially a vertical stripe.
same as detroit & cleveland
The stripe on the Detroit cap was not a racing stripe, but a sleeve stripe. So it looks as intended.
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i can’t tell if the Guardians one is the shoulder or sleeve stripe from the 90s
Cleveland’s hat stripe looks like a sleeve stripe. The racing stripe had a thinner white stripe.
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I actually like most of these (and would like them much more if there were no “ST” or “Clubhouse” caps and these were used for those purposes too but I guess have to triple dip *insert eye roll*). From a selfish “team I root for” standpoint, really glad the Yankees finally have one using the top hat logo.
As a person who *despises* the Yankees (haha), I’m glad they went with this logo too. I would love to see “Yankees” in script on a jersey actually.
These are all mostly good, though I’m still salty I won’t be able to get a Red Sox hat with the white B on it without the stupid Florida logo on the side.
You could buy a Uni Watch seam ripper!
The lack of comment from New Era about the new materials and technology and so on confuses me. Seems that’s usually the big selling point.
That said, I’ll be buying two.
My main complaint is the fabric, which looks very acrylic and cheap. The designs are mostly average to underwhelming with some nice exceptions (Oakland, Baltimore, Houston, Philly), some down and out ghastly (Mets blue, both Yankees, Reds, Twins and Tigers) and two puzzling decisions: why is that Royals logo so small? Why do the Dodgers need an extra team logo on the side?
This is pure guesswork, but the Dodgers’ cursive D is identical to the Chunichi Dragons’ cursive D. Perhaps the side logo are meant to clarify when team’s cap it is.
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Why MLB would put out a cap that’s identical to another team’s, well, that’s a question for Rob Manfred. We’ve got five years left to ask him.
Can UW install a running countdown clock to mark the time until Manfred retires?
It looks slightly strange detached from the rest of the script, but that is in fact the D from the Dodgers script logo. And the reason it looks so close to the Chunichi Dragons’ logo is because the Chunichi Dragons based their branding on the Dodgers. Two seconds of googling would have killed you Scott?
Padday…I know all of that. Many of us here do. The Dragons used the cleaved D on their caps from 1987-1996. For the Dodgers, it’s a newish thing. Would two seconds of Googling have killed you?
There’s a reason that only the Dodgers’ BP caps have a side logo, and I’m taking a wild conjectural swing at why.
So the fact the Dodgers used an element of their own identity, which once upon a time a Japanese team took wholesale for their own use on a cap, makes the Dodgers, MLB and all the way up to Rob Manfred culpable of some kind of uni theft (or I guess unoriginality? I’m not really even sure what the crime even is).
Oh, because why else would they put the full logo on the side? I dunno, these caps are in general a little all over the place, it’s hardly going out on a limb to say the Dodgers just wanted to add more stuff and MLB was just like “sure”. I can’t really begin to imagine the Dodgers are worried about getting confused for an NPB team. Plus, the side patch also appears on the grey cap which, as far as I can tell, has no Dragons equivalent, so the argument pretty well collapses there anyway.
Really not sure what googling I could do to come anywhere close to understanding the extreme leaps of logic you’re employing Scott. Perhaps “how to fashion tin foil into a nifty cap”?
When I see that cursive D I think Moscow Dynamo! (Hockey/soccer)
I think Chunichi Dragons.
When I see that cursive D I think Moscow Dynamo! (Hockey/soccer).
i have questions. why does the Mets cap have the racing stripe on the bottom near the brim, but the Guardians and Tigers have the racing stripe in the middle of the front panel? I’m assuming because of the pinstripes on the Mets cap. as my kids might say to the Mets, “you’re doin’ too much”.
Also, why is the elephant on the Oakland cap wearing sunglasses?
The elephant started wearing sunglasses in the 1990s when the A’s resumed wearing green jerseys. This is a throwback to those days.
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My heart breaks a little bit more every time I see A’s merch that’s cool, coz I’m sure not throwing any money John Fisher’s way. But I’m sorely tempted by the Phillie Phanatic cap.
Argh, the Phillies cap. I love it, but I’m a Nats fan. Even through two of my favorite former Nationals players are now in Philadelphia, I have a hard time bringing a Phillies hat into my house.
let me know if am wrong and maybe its a bit of mental gymnastics but if you buy it from a 3rd party that revenue goes to all the teams to be divvied up. only time the money goes directly to them is if you buy from the team shops/stadium
And why isn’t the elephant white?
I feel like it’s goofy (and, as dumb as this sounds, unfair?) for any teams to have more than one BP cap. Like, sure, they’ll sell regardless, and it allows for different colorways for teams where the BP cap might otherwise not match, but in that case, why not do two for every single team? Why only give four teams that “privilege”? It just makes the line feel weirdly inconsistent. Honestly, I feel that way for any of these lines of caps besides that actual on-field game caps since those are at least part of a real uniform – these are essentially glorified fashion caps, so design them in a way that works all around for whatever ancillary uniform is being worn below them.
What is even more puzzling is that the Tigers have only one BP cap when they are one of the few teams that really need two.
The official shot of the 5950 of the Mets’ cap with the pinstripes and trucker stripes is better than that one we saw before (where the pins looked wonky), but it’s still an ugly hat. I am amused that their other cap is going with the 1987 New York road script; that’s certainly an interesting callback.
Why is the Twins pinstriping different?
I actually prefer it for the hat, but curious as to why it is straight vertical while other teams have angled pinstripes that meet at the panel seem or seems.
Is the striping on their uniforms different or wider?
If you lay the unassembled panels flat, the pins are usually fairly straight, but in the case of the Twins cap, they’re actually curving toward the top.
For me it’s not just that they are different but that they’ve screwed up every pinstripe hat here except the twins. Now of course the twins works easily because it’s just the front two panels (but that leaves no excuse for the Mets), and it’s not an easy feat to do a full pinstripe hat like they’ve tried for the marlins and the Rockies, but executing something that requires skill and attention to detail is why these companies get paid so handsomely for these contracts. Anyway, the pinstripe hats look awful mostly because of sloppy execution, and they really managed to make the rays gradient look like shoddy work, too.
Mets fan here and hate that home cap. The road cap is almost a carbon copy of The 7 Line’s script version for multiple years, but that had a small NY logo on the front. link
Absolutely no creativity in the Mariners hat. So many options to choose from and they mash up the “S” from 87-92 with the current colors in a tricolor hat.
I like this one, like a reverse retro design.
Seattle’s spring training hat is nice too.
As a Rays fan, I do like Devil Rays era logo in the current color scheme. I am the sucker they are looking for with these products. I will probably pick one up.
There’s something endearing about a batting practice cap with a bat on it. The A’s design works particularly well for a batting practice cap! If they’re going to have these unnecessary caps, I at least appreciate when they are fun.
Some of these are great — love to see the Brewers’ barrelman logo! — but jeez, that material sure looks like trash. Especially on the lighter colored hats, which get a sort of moire pattern / graph paper look in these photos.
Mercy, how much of an upgrade are the Angels in the dark navy blue and red bill caps? How this hasn’t replaced the red on red on red look they’ve had is beyond me.
Okay…”retro” logos are the theme. Could have been executed much better. Happy to see the “DC” Nats logo return.
But would have LOVED to see Detroit bring back the old tiger head-circle logo from the 1960s-1990s.
Angels’ visual identity continues to disappoint. Just like their play on the field.
All the caps with the horizontal stripes remind me of an elastic band. I just wanna snap it! And they’re horrible to boot. My favorite though is the Mets script cap, based on the 1987 road unis. I’ll forever love that big swoopy Y. Too bad it was just a one-and-done.
Do they ever release these in an adjustable style with the non flat bill?
The Mets 2024 batting practice hat looks like it was designed be a committee where everone got to chose one thing to go on the hat
Brewers with the W. That and the ball and glove are the best in MLB.
If the Phillies got to use the Phanatic, why couldn’t the Rockies use Dinger and other teams use their mascots too?