All good things must come to an end. New Era has been producing baseball caps for the MLB since the 1930s, helping create some of the most iconic hats in the world. With every passing year, though, the designs have continued to get worse and worse. But since they were stripped of jersey rights from the MLB, it looks as though New Era has gone off the rails. 

Their designs of several one-off hats for the Phillies this season have been suspect. From Mother’s and Father’s day to All-Star Weekend, they have all been a resounding meh. Some of the designs work well like the Phillies 4th of July Hat, but look disgusting for a team like the Rockies or Padres. But recently, some of their retail hats have been brought to my attention, and all I can say is that viewer discretion is advised.

I don’t even know where to begin with these designs. The most troubling note is that they are all somehow sold out. Who in their right mind would purchase these hats to wear in public? I hope that only one or two were created, and New Era repurchased them to make some sort of artificial hype. If I ever see any of you wearing these designs in public, I advise you seek psychiatric help. While a rose and a wave make no sense appearing on a hat for the Philadelphia Phillies, there is one that trumps them all. 

I want to know who created this design and was able to look at themselves in the mirror and say, “yeah, this is good”. This hat looks like if the website was glitching and two hats blended together. The idea of spelling out the Phillies’ word mark with different fonts from their history is a good idea, but it was executed in the worst way imaginable. 

The lettering was repeated while not being able to distinguish what era each letter is from. On top of that, the original P is still smack in the middle to triple the confusion. I really hope that someone can take over the hats from New Era for their own sake in the near future.

One logical explanation is that New Era is continuously releasing terrible hats as a marketing effort to draw attention to the good hats. Maybe customers will see these and say “there is no way in hell I’m buying this, I’ll just go with an original.” Seems like an interesting marketing concept but anything for engagement and eyes on the website, right?

It might be helpful if anyone at New Era actually watched baseball games or had the pulse of baseball fans. Even if they were going for more of a style or culture hat, these completely miss the bar. But between this and the Flyers rebrand that resurfaced, it’s been a dark day for Philadelphia sports.