Before jumping into the past two days worth of finger pointing, denials, and heavy handedness, let's get one thing straight: Uniforms aren't really all that important in baseball. In all other professional team sports, uniforms are designed to distinguish players from one another for the benefit of ones teammates. In baseball, however, opposing players aren't really on the same field of play to the end that their appearance would be confused. A batter doesn't confuse a base-runner for an extra infielder. It doesn't happen. And yet, baseball follows the same hard and fast uniform rules as the other leagues.
That said, my knee jerk reaction to the fact that MLB sent the Mets a memo last week prohibiting them from wearing hats representing NY City's first responders on Sunday night's game is something along the lines of "oh give me a break..." First of all, MLB had already recognized the significance of the game by flexing their schedule and moving the Mets vs. Cubs game to prime time. These are two teams woefully out of contention who on any day that wasn't the anniversary of an event of historical significance, wouldn't even qualify as a game interesting enough for the MLB network. On September 10th, no one is watching the Mets play the Cubs. Secondly, MLB already had their dog and pony pregame show set up to go head to head with Sunday night football's flag waving and anthem singing. With the NFL being the biggest rule police out there, MLB had the perfect opportunity to play the role of the good guys, again.
And while there seems to be a handful of different accounts of how things went down, here's what we do know: MLB issued a memo to all teams instructing them to stick to their normal uniform procedures with only the addition of an American flag on the jersey and cap as a sign of patriotic solidarity.
The problem here is that finances undoubtedly played a significant impact in the cap decision. God forbid MLB has to return 162nd of it's income from it's deal with New ERA for using a non-logo'd hat in one game or that New ERA won't reap ridiculous revenue by selling the same exact hat they always do with a tiny flag added to the side! God forbid millionaire athletes have to pay a fine for defying the rules! God forbid the NY Mets allow their players to break the rules while still on the hook for a $25M loan from MLB itself!
As I sit here two days after the fact and listen to radio shows and read articles where Joe Torre denies issuing any hard ruling, RA Dickey says that the hats were stolen from the dugout, and Bud Selig is livid that his office has been thrown under the bus, I can't help but think this all could have easily been avoided. For a sport that is so wrapped up in its own history and does such a fantastic job at marketing that history, they really dropped the ball by allowing a cap controversy to even become an issue. Is the fallout really worth it?
No comments:
Post a Comment