Baltimore Orioles: Reactions to New Era ‘Local Market’ Hat

As all 30 MLB team’s designs were released by New Era on Tuesday, fans took to social media to voice their distaste for the hat series. Many believed the hats were inaccurate, busy, or just flat-out confusing.

From the beginning, many people saw issues with the choices of area codes for each hat. For example, the Kansas City Royals Local Market design includes area codes 316, 620, 785, and 913 but omits 816, the area code of Kauffman Stadium. The Royals official Twitter account changed its bio to poke fun at New Era’s error.

Zack Meisel, who covers the Cleveland Indians for The Athletic, shared a tweet about the series, calling the designs, “fifth grade art projects” while sharing photos of the Indians’ hat. Fans seemed particularly confused about the pierogi on the back of the hat. One fan noted how closely the design resembles a Smucker’s Uncrustables sandwich in a reply to Meisel’s tweet.

The negative response over the design ultimately made New Era decide to remove the hat series from their website within the same day as its release, according to a tweet from Dani Welniak of KCTV.

Whether New Era plans to re-launch the Local Market line has yet to be announced. However, if Tuesday’s response holds true to what fans think of the design, New Era has some work to do if they hope to be successful with this hat series.