Sublimated U.S. Flag MLB Caps for 4th of July

God Bless America! Where showing patriotism and looking sharp are mutually exclusive.

At least on a Major League ball diamond this past decade.

This July 4th will of course be no different, and may indeed be the tackiest batch of Independence Day caps we’ve seen thus far.

Thanks to a post on Uni-Watch we’ve gotten out first look at the 2015 version of the 4th of July cap, a big ole’ American flag sublimated onto the front panel behind the team logo trimmed in red/white/blue.

Two things:

– first time we’ve seen sublimated designs on baseball cap, this could be the start of something horrible

– batting practice versions too?

Click image for full-sized version (photo courtesy Uni-Watch)

Only the Los Angeles Dodgers cap has been shown so far, so we’re not entirely sure what’s a league-wide template and what’s customized for each team. For example, the cap we’ve seen is blue, but is it blue for the Dodgers or blue for ‘Merica? Is the logo white because the Dodgers “LA” logo is white or because each team logo will be re-coloured red/white/blue?

Paul Lukas at Uni-Watch described it quite perfectly:

“This is the kind of American flag cap you’d find at a gas station (right next to the cheap sunglasses and the air freshener thingies), but with a team logo slapped on the front. It’s tempting to call it self-parody, but it feels two or three levels more absurd than that. Come on, people — have some dignity out there.”

Check out the rest of Paul’s thoughts here.

One would assume the Blue Jays will not be wearing a giant American flag on their caps, instead a Canadian flag. And while, yes, it makes no sense for Toronto to wear an American flag, it makes just as little sense for them to take the field in the United States (at Detroit that afternoon) on their national holiday wearing the flag of another nation. Toronto should be wearing their regular ole everyday cap or what all teams could be wearing that day instead…

Seriously, why can’t we just do the simple little U.S. flag patch on the side again? Are sales really so much more important than desecrating the flag (of two nations)?

MLB 2014 Stars and Stripes Caps — 2014 version of the July 4th cap

In my perfect world teams are left to do their own thing for holidays, or really any special occasion — want a special design? Do it yourself. Eliminates the template. Feel like treating it like any other day? (As every team in the league did for the first 100+ years of modern baseball) Completely up to you.