I’m still shocked at Major League Baseball’s refusal to allow the Mets to wear NYPD and FDNY caps in last night’s game against the Cubs. I’m still curious to hear some rationale from Joe Torre apart from some regurgitation of baseball’s rule against allowing teams to wear unofficial caps. And there needs to be another reason because sometimes baseball does allow unofficial caps.
As Marc Carig reminded us this morning, four years ago the Nationals were given formal approval to wear Virginia Tech caps following the shooting rampage that occurred on Virginia Tech’s campus, leaving 32 people dead and 25 injured. As Carig himself reported at the time, those caps were obtained, just hours before the game, from sporting goods stores in the Washington, D.C. suburbs. But their use was officially approved by Major League Baseball.
If that was OK, why not the Mets’ request? My cynical side looks at Joe Torre’s reference to the fact that all teams wore caps with little flags on them and wonders if there are less-innocuous reason than “it’s a unanimity thing” for baseball’s refusal. Like, for example, the fact that one of baseball’s merchandising partners is selling caps with the little flags on them. Did some vendor object to there being something that takes away from the 9/11 cap?
I hope that’s not the case. I hope that this is all really Major League Baseball being myopic and tone deaf. Because if this was really all about making sure that the Mets didn’t take away a marketing opportunity for one of its business partners during last night’s telecast, it would be pretty sad indeed.
