Mets Dump Orange-Billed Hat

The Mets have dumped their orange-billed alternate hat for 2017, but for some reason, will maintain having an alternate hat. Do teams really need more than one?

This is the hat the Mets have worn for the past few years (which I never liked, by the way), mostly with their blue alternate jerseys (they have two — home and away. They should just ditch the away jersey; the gray/silver lettering on “New York” does not match the rest of the uniform scheme).

It will be replaced with a blue-billed hat, according to the folks at Uni-Watch.

 

The new hat keeps the white background on the “NY.” I never liked that; it looks like one of those phony logos you see on cheap hats for sale on the streets. Since the background is the only thing different from the Mets usual, classic hat, why have it at all?

The answer, of course, is marketing. There are fans who buy every new piece of team gear, so all this does is add to the coffers of the Mets and MLB. MLB is a billion-dollar operation — does it really need to make more money on useless equipment at the expense of its loyal fans?