Cardinals’ promotion turned into a social media gaffe

The Cardinals scheduled a promotion for May 17, when the club takes on the Red Sox, giving away a replica 1967 World Series ring. The Cardinals defeated the Red Sox in seven games back in 1967 to win the championship. So far, so good.

Unfortunately, on Tuesday, the Cardinals’ Twitter account made a gaffe attempting to promote the giveaway. The account tweeted, “You love baseball, she loves jewelry. On May 17th, it’s a win-win.” It attached a video that showed a woman gawking at the ring.

The response wasn’t quite what the Cardinals were expecting. Many responded angrily to the tweet because of its sexist nature. The Cardinals deleted the tweet along with the short video, as Ben Frederickson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch explains. The club also issued a statement:

Earlier today, we posted a spot on social media to promote our upcoming 1967 Championship Ring giveaway. We received some feedback that it may have either offended some people or created confusion as to whether it was for women only, so we promptly removed it. Our ring giveaways have always been popular with both men and women, and we want to be clear that we will be distributing 30,000 rings to all fans, age 16 or older, before our game on Wednesday, May 17th.

Gender-based division is on its way out, so hopefully baseball teams get on that train sooner rather than later. There’s no need for it and as the Cardinals found out, a thoughtless slip-up can result in a tidal wave of backlash -- which, by the way, was completely warranted.

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