Some of the hats in the just-launched lineup of New Era Major League Baseball caps have accidentally become collector’s items – because they can be read as being naughty.
The motif for the new caps overlays the team name with the team logo or sigil – think ‘A’s’ for the Oakland Athletics over the word ‘Athletics’ or a large ‘Y’ over the middle of the word ‘Yankees’ for the New York Yankees.
Unfortunately, the combination yielded some awkward patterns that could be taken in a vulgar way. The Texas Rangers cap, with a big ‘T’ over the word ‘Texas,’ could be read as ‘Tetas,’ the Spanish word for breasts – and the cap was pulled from stores, the Dallas Morning News reported on Monday.
Now two other hats have also been yanked, reports Nexstar Media Group: that of the Houston Astros, because the big ‘H’ eclipsed the ‘T’ in the team name, resulting in the word ‘Ashos,’ and the Anaheim Angels, with a large ‘A’ resulting in ‘Anaels.’
Those hats are no longer for sale in the online Fanatics store, where you can find, for instance, the Arizona Diamondbacks cap, which appears to spell ‘Ariana,’ and the Boston Red Sox hat, which appears to spell ‘Bobon.’
‘This year’s New Era ‘Overlap’ hats are going viral for creating some of the funniest, stupidest, most-amazing hats we’ve ever seen,’ noted the SB Nation site.
Yes, you can get the vulgar New Era hats … for a price
Some of these, let’s call them retracted collectibles, apparently were sold to buyers before they were yanked off the shelves and, of course, they are up for sale on eBay. A few of the Rangers caps had already sold for hundreds of dollars and there’s still some online for $750 or for $800. A pair of Houston hats have sold for $500 each and there’s at least two available priced at $311 and $500 or best offer. Also on eBay you’ll find an Angels hat posted for about $500.
This blunder comes a year after another flub from New Era last year with an Oakland A’s cap that superimposed the A’s logo over another A’s logo in the background to create what appeared to be a word for your rear end.
Follow Mike Snider on Threads, Bluesky and X:mikegsnider & @mikegsnider.bsky.social & @mikesnider.
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