Tigers Unveil New Batting Practice Hats

via ESPN

By Sean Gagnier
 
Because fans would revolt if their team changed their uniforms each season, the MLB has decided to take its fashion...."sense" out on the batting practice hats for all 30 teams each year, and this year's crop of BP hats are exceptionally horrific.

Some of the new designs do work well, notably the Houston Astros', but the alternate color front panel with a different colored brim just doesn't work with many teams, namely the Tigers.

On the home BP hat, pictured above, the front panel is gray. Gray. Since when is that a part of Detroit's color palate? It looks wrong and the blue Olde English "D" on the crown just looks out of place. Not to mention, the front panel is not the same color as the rest of the crown of the hat. Making it look very similar to those trucker hats that are oh-so popular with a certain swath of the fashion world.

It could also just be the way that the image has been rendered, but it appears as though the stitching throughout the hat will be blue and quite noticeable. It's supposed to be a hat made for professional ballplayers, not a knock around hat for a frat guy. 

via ESPN

The road version of the 2013 Tigers BP hat isn't much better than its home counterpart. The one good thing that can be said about it is that the entire crown is gray. The biggest problem with the hat? It's gray. The "D" remains blue, but is this time outlined in orange. And the brim remains blue.

Maybe someone in the uniform department had a nephew or niece that needed a job in design out of college and gave them the BP hat thinking they couldn't do much damage. Well, they did. These are horrifyingly bad and will hopefully find themselves in the trash for good come the 2014 season.