In case you were not watching, and shame on you if you weren't, both teams were sporting special 4th of July American Independence Day caps. Like this:
Or this:
Yay.I didn't think too much of it at first. But I did notice that, oddly enough, the color wasn't quite right on the Yankees cap. The Red Sox caps were also slightly lighter in tone than they normally are. Here is last night's staring pitcher for Boston, Justin Masterson:
And here is Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia from earlier this season:
The lighting is different in the pictures, but the colors are different with yesterday's cap being lighter. The Yankees had the same problem. Nyah:
The color discrepancy pisses me off, as I'm sure it does every member of Uniwatchers. The stars and stripes addition to the hats looks kinda dumb, but whatever. That is until I read this originally from UniWatch, via the great USS Mariner blog. Allow me to quote from both in a confusing manner:
...it’s not just a craven attempt to exploit fans into buying a new cap for $35. Oh no:This is all just further proof that:A portion of proceeds from all caps sales will go to the Welcome Back Veterans fund
You might wonder what portion that is, exactly.
Newspaper Tour Guide: And each paper contains a certain percentage of recycled paper.
Lisa: What percentage is that?
Newspaper Tour Guide: Zero. Zero is a percent, isn’t it?Sorry, wrong quote.
It played out with Uni Watch like so:
MLB PR czar Rich Levin glared at me like I’d just hocked a loogie in his cappuccino or something. “The answer is that that hasn’t been determined yet,” he growled. “But this is a charity initiative — it isn’t about generating revenue.”
“I’m not suggesting otherwise,” I responded. “But there’s a certain level of cynicism out there among some fans, so I was giving you a chance to clarify…”
“We reject that,” he snapped. “We reject the cynicism.”
Uni Watch on the caps
Uni Watch at the press conferenceI don’t have a lot to add to that Uni Watch post: these kind of things really annoy me.
But what’s absolutely amazing about this is the raw, unmitigated cynicism of MLB, that they’d launch patriotic themed hats ostensibly to benefit a worthy veterans charity and be totally unprepared to tell anyone what the participation is. I’ve got a pretty dim view of humanity and this shocked me. How could you do this? How do you go lower than this? Are the caps ugly because the program’s ugly? Is this branding a warning by someone on the inside, trying to keep us from falling prey to this program?
- MLB are not good with the marketing
- You can say anything about anything as long as you are trying to sell something
- I am not a very good blogger
6 comments:
I heard on the Phillies radio network that it was 100% of the profits that was to be donated. I sought confirmation online and couldn't find it.
The whole thing is the pet project of the Mets ownership, so it's fair to expect it's as crooked as the day is long.
I am a proud Charter Member of UniWatch. Paul Lukas is a swell guy.
I haven't been able to find any type of confirmation that any specific percentage of the profits from hat sales will go to the charity. It could (and should!) be out there somewhere, but I haven't seen it.
I thought I heard John Miller rambling about the project, but I wasn't paying close enough attention.
Miller: "So, Joe, what do you think of the special 4th of July hats? Pretty snazzy huh? And proceeds go to benefit veterans returning from Iraq."
Joe: That may or may not be a good thing, I'm not quite sure. Back when the Reds tried something like this in the mid-70's it was a good gesture, but I'm not really certain what baseball is doing now is good or bad. It's too early to tell. We'll have to wait and see how it plays out."
Genius.
From today's UWB post:
A source at MLB.com checked in yesterday with the following info about the star-spangled caps: “Just Sunday and Monday, they sold almost $250,000 worth of these hats JUST on the mlb.com online store. That doesn’t count sales at the game, sales at stores, or sales at other online sites. They have been the top-selling items all weekend. Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, and Phillies were the top four, in that order. They are far and away the best-selling item we had last week and one of the hottest-selling items this year.” All very nice, what with “a portion of the proceeds” going to charity. Still waiting to hear what the portion is and what portion, if any, MLB is pocketing.
Joe Morgan doesn't understand your insistence on numbers. Some of the proceeds are going to charity! Charities don’t need numbers. Charities need charity, which is what MLB is giving them. Why do you need to get caught up in numbers all the time, Joe Morgan wonders?
Post a Comment