St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

            I love St. Patrick’s Day!  I am part Irish; not that that matters, everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day.  I will wear my green today, eat corn beef and cabbage (in the form of a Reuben sandwich) and life will be grand.  But there is one thing about St. Patrick’s Day that I am not fond of…..MLB’s St. Patrick’s Day merchandise.  This time of year there are entire sections of the online MLB shop devoted to green clothes: shirts, hats, shorts, you name it.  I don’t know if it’s because I am an accountant and tend to be frugal so I do not understand buying this merchandise that is only relevant for ONE day (not even a day during the regular season at that) or if it’s because only one team has green in their color scheme so this merchandise looks somewhat awkward, but I just don’t like it.  Apparently some people enjoy it; it comes back year after year and occasionally you will see a random green hat with an MLB logo on it.  It wouldn’t be so bad if the players did not have to incorporate green into their uniforms.  Last year the Braves wore their blue jerseys with the red tomahawk and lettering and a green hat.  I love green and navy together, but it was a weird look.  The Dodgers wore a green jersey with “Dodgers” in white and the traditional red numbers and the Cardinals wore green jerseys with the traditional red cardinals sitting on the bat and “Cardinals” underneath.  Red on green just makes me think of Christmas. 

            I have never been a fan of merchandise in any color other than the team’s official colors.  Okay, that’s not entirely true.  While I was in college a ton of Auburn shirts came out in various colors and I bought a brown sweatshirt with pink letters.  In my defense, my sorority’s colors are brown and mode (light brown) and we love to incorporate pink; so it was sort of relevant…to me.  Also, in my defense, I never wore it to a sporting event.  For a while there was a lot of women’s merchandise that was baby pink, regardless of the team’s colors.  I find that practice a little offensive.  That trend seems to have tapered off.  Hopefully this means female fans are being taken more seriously.  Because it’s hard to take anyone seriously when they are wearing shirt or hat representing a team, but the shirt or hat is a completely random color.