Stars and Stripes Forever!

Well, Major League Baseball and New Era are at it again! Last year, for just about every patriotic date during the season, every team wore special blue hats with an American Flag imprint of their logo (although the Toronto Blue Jays wore a cap with a Canadian imprint, which is a nice touch). The hats debuted during the Fourth of July series, I believe, and were worn again on Veteran's day and again on 9/11. A portion of all sales went to help returning veterans.

Being the amazing Phillies fan I am, I bought one at a local sneaker store in late July. I really like fitted hats, and it seemed nice because a part of my buy was going to help returning vets. And I told myself, hey, it's not like their doing this every year. And even if they do bring them back, I'll already have one! It'll be perfect.

If only I knew how naive past-Derek was. Recently, Major League Baseball announced that this year, starting on Memorial day, teams would once again be wearing stars and stripes. This time, however, instead of using the same old blue ones from last year, teams will be wearing brand new red caps.

Now I'm in a bit of a pickle over this whole thing. First off, I really like last years hat; it's my second hat for Phillies games, just barely getting outshone by my world series patch hat. It's a solid hat and I have no regrets buying it, let alone wearing it. However, I feel like this year's hat is more "Phillies", if that makes sense. I think the red is a nice touch, but at the same time I don't get it, because I thought the blue of last year's hat was a nod to the formal uniforms of the armed forces.

But the pickle I'm in has nothing to do with the color of the hats. It's the fact that I'm a sucker for these new and exciting hat promotions. I got the blue stars and stripes last summer, and it was my only fitted Phillies hat for a while. Then I got a world series patch hat, another kind of gimmicky hat. It's not that I don't like them, or regret them, because I still wear both, but I don't have any regular Phillies fitted hats, and honestly, I doubt I'll ever get one.

Honestly, I'll probably end up buying one of the red hats, sooner rather than later. And next year, I'll probably get whatever new one they spin out (hopefully it's white, because that would look sick). I'll stop when they bring out camo ones.

As a little afterthought, last year the Cleveland Indian's hat featured their mascot, Chief Wahoo, all done up in the American Flag garb. This year's hat instead features a stylized C that screams "politically correct".