On Tuesday, New Era released its fresh baseball caps as part of its new “Local Market” series aimed at hometown fans. The idea was to represent each team’s respective city with various logos and symbols. You might be thinking: Here comes an eye roll-worthy Nationals cap covered in predictably boring monuments. Not at all! Too basic. No, these hats were designed with DC in mind, of course. That explains the bald eagle, the out-of-context hot dog (is that supposed to be Ben’s?), and the special “1776” badge that obviously nods to the important time when…DC didn’t yet exist.
New Era has released its "local market" series with a cap for each team that includes "city-inspired elements throughout the cap." Thoughts on the Nationals' DC-centric edition? pic.twitter.com/KUI1LGqHaA
— Matt Weyrich (@ByMattWeyrich) May 25, 2021
At least one date makes sense: 1901, the year the Washington Senators played their first season. (To be charitable, the flat brim could be viewed as a reference to early Nats closer Chad Cordero.) It wasn’t just the Nats hats, either—other designs were dragged on Twitter for looking as if they were constructed with the help of clip art. NBC Sports Washington reported that within 24 hours the hats were pulled from New Era’s website. Too bad we couldn’t preserve one! It’s local history, after all.
Rosa is a senior editor at Bitch Magazine. She’s written for Washingtonian and Smithsonian magazine.
