Major League Baseball hats are only cool when you are out of that market. This is the paradox of sports gear.
I recently saw former soccer star David Beckham in a magazine wearing a Brooklyn sweatshirt. He looked cool, because he always looks cool and can pull off anything. Mortal men, however, have to follow different rules.
What follows is my guide for what to wear when and where.
The first rule to follow is that everything looks cooler in a different place. If I wear my Detroit Tigers hat when visiting family in Louisiana, I look pretty sweet. When I wear that same hat in Michigan, I’m like every other dude. Conversely, I should only wear my LSU hat when I’m back home in the mitten state.
The second rule is to watch what you can or cannot pull off. A popular athlete, like David Beckham, can wear gear from cities he has no connection to like Brooklyn. Becks can do this, but I’d look really silly in the same logoed clothing.
Rule number three is a little more subtle. Basically, you should have some sort of connection that you can go to when someone asks about your gear. This includes if you’ve gone to a game once and picked up a shirt or you had family that lived near a college and grabbed you a cap. You get the point. For me, this means I can wear pro gear from Detroit, Chicago and New Orleans without any trouble. Going beyond these cities becomes a little dicey.
The looser interpretation of the third rule gives you a little more wiggle room. Maybe you just like the team or their gear and that’s mostly okay. I like MLB teams that live with smaller budgets and have to be smarter than the others. I usually follow the Oakland A’s and Tampa Bay Rays some and it wouldn’t be too far afield to wear a cap from either team. There are lots of reasons that make sense.
What you are trying to avoid is this common scene. You are away from home and see someone wearing gear from your hometown team and you say, “Hey, you like the Chicago Fire too! That’s awesome! What do you think about the latest trade?”
And that person says, “Uh, I just bought this because I like red hats, though I did see a soccer game once.”
And you awkwardly have to end the conversation and feel bad about the beautiful game.
Right around 1996 I saw a guy in a Tampa Bay Mutiny hat, which was an original MLS team. I freaked out because hardly anyone had MLS gear (or any soccer gear here in the states) at the time. Of course, he just liked the design and colors and didn’t know it was from a new soccer team or why I was freaking out.
Beyond that, there is one more thing to keep in mind. No one likes a bandwagon jumper, so teams like the Dallas Cowboys, New York Yankees and Manchester United are out of the question unless you grew up with those teams.
I will mention two more things, but won’t go into them in detail here. Retro gear, like a vintage USFL Michigan Panthers shirt, has its own set of rules apart from current teams and logos. Also, adults really shouldn’t wear sports gear at all, unless you are on your way to the ballpark. I’ll get into this and more in a future post.
There you go. The random rules you didn’t know you needed for wearing your Houston Astros gear.
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