Republicans win NH Primaries, Fisher Cats don elephant caps

Is it a portent of things to come in a tumultuous election year? More than two months after the actual New Hampshire Primaries, the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, Double-A affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays, let fans decide whether they would take the field for tonight’s home opener wearing Republican elephant hats or Democrat donkey hats, and the fans placed a call to the bullpen for the righties.

When the team was announced back before the 2004 season, the Fisher Cats were named the Primaries as an homage to their state’s traditional role as the first official contest in election seasons. Fans reacted negatively to the name before they ever took the field, and the team went with Fisher Cats instead. Since then, they’ve kept the Primaries nickname as an alternate identity.

The Fisher Cats announced during this past offseason that they’d wear bipartisan blue and red jerseys on opening night, but would let fans choose by way of an online vote which hat the team would wear. (We wrote about that back in November.) So when Melky Mesa ended tonight’s home opener against the Portland Sea Dogs with a walk-off hit in the 10th, he did so in a Republican red elephant logo cap.

The original Primaries identity was created before the 2004 season by Dan Simon of Studio Simon, and the “We the Fans” promotional items were created by Brandiose.