Xenophon Strategies

Selig Should Be "Irate" at MLB's Rigidness Instead of Mets

Blake Rhodes

Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig is irate with the New York Mets because the team had the audacity to want to honor the 9/11 first responders, much as it did 10 years ago when the players wore FDNY and NYPD hats.  He’s irate because the Mets let it be known that MLB wouldn’t honor the request and demanded that the players wear MLB-mandated hats adorned with American flags as every other team did on Sunday.  Selig should be irate at Major League Baseball’s rigidness in adhering to its policy that has in turn allowed the league to be portrayed as choosing profits and marketing over using common sense and continuing to be an institution that helps Americans cope with tragedies by providing a respite from real life.

MLB has very strict guidelines in terms of what the players can and can’t wear on the field.  I very much understand and respect protecting the MLB brand and protecting its partners, like New Era which is official hat provider for the league.  However, some occasional circumstances call for exceptions to the rule.

Unfortunately, issues like this arise because decisions about allowing a special exemption to one team out of 30 may not have been discussed across MLB’s different departments.  As communicators, we’re trained to not make decisions in a vacuum.  That being said, we remember how powerful it was for Mets players to wear the hats of the city’s fire and police departments during the first game in New York following the attacks 10 years.   I still remember seeing John Franco wearing a FDNY hat in that game against the Braves and feeling the emotion from 3,000 miles away.  I can only imagine what it was like at Shea Stadium that night.

As we saw throughout the news coverage of the anniversary of this tragic attack last week, raw emotion remains prevalent in New York even 10 years later. With Sunday night’s game with the Cubs being broadcast nationally, it would have been a great gesture to the 9/11 victims, their families and the rest of the country for the Mets to wear the FDNY and NYPD hats as a show of respect. 

As you may recall, baseball helped play a large role in helping galvanize New York and America following the attacks.  Who could ever forget President George W. Bush throwing out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium before Game 3 of the World Series and the country taking one of its first steps to recovery?

If I were advising Mr. Selig and my friends at Major League Baseball, I would make the uniform policy more flexible in certain instances and also announce that moving forward; both the Mets and Yankees will be allowed to wear the caps of New York’s first responders every September 11.   

Baseball is a part of the American fabric.  For one day each year, let the New York teams wear a hat of a different fabric to honor the fallen. Even if that fabric has to be New Era, to appease a partner.

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