The Little Joys of Baseball - 3/16/25
Anaels & Tetas! I draw better than Kenta Maeda! Big day for me on IG!
The Little Joys of Baseball has returned after a two-week hiatus in which I was in Arizona for Cactus League Spring Training (post on that to come). While I debated making a couple of entries, between my freelance work, staying with family and the all important job of attending Spring Training games (and on some days TWO gams in one day), there wouldn’t have been much to detail as the little to BIG joys was the very act of being able to watch baseball in-person for nearly 7 days straight!
But I digress, now that I’ve returned, back to our regularly scheduled programming. So here’s what brought me joy in the world of baseball this week…
New Era’s QA fail
Unless you’ve been morbidly OFFLINE all week (which, if so, good for you), you’ve no doubt by now seen the kerfuffle around New Era’s new Overlap MLB caps they released earlier in the week (even I made a TikTok about it). Aside from an obvious tell-tale sign of a lack of diversity in their organization, how most of these made it through quality assurance is confounding!
Even if you didn’t know “Tetas” was Spanish slang for “tits”, there were other glaringly obvious options like “Anaels” and “Ashos” that if baseball fans and the entire internet alike were able to point out immediately, how was New Era not able to??
Nevertheless, it was a hilarious couple of days as fans desperately tried to grab the caps before New Era ultimately took the ones shown above down (most others are still available to purchase on the MLB Shop and currently at a discount). The faux pas made national headlines as major media outlets picked it up, and even got into late night circuit with The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
The lucky few who purchased and received their caps have been selling them upwards of $1K for the priceless pieces on eBay (and people ARE buying).
If you’re unwilling to put up half your rent for a cap, here’s an alternative. Athlete Logos put a positive (and affordable) spin to the mess by designing a “Save the Tetas” T-shirt where proceeds of all sales will go towards breast cancer research. So you can still wear Tetas while trying to SAVE the Tetas.
Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer’s Starbucks Run
The ritual of rookie coffee runs for the team is hardly new, but when new Boston Red Sox pitcher Walker Buehler ribbed the team’s No. 1 prospect Roman Anthony early in Spring Training about getting coffee for the entire team, coaches included, Anthony thought it was a joke. Until it wasn’t.
While the fabled coffee run apparently happened prior to this week, The Athletic’s Jen McCaffrey got the 411 this week. It’s a pretty wholesome and funny story worth reading. But, if you aren’t a subscriber to The Athletic, the gist of it is, Anthony and fellow top prospect Marcel Mayer picked out the Starbucks the day before and spoke with the manager, then got there by 5 a.m. to place the orders - roughly 76 unique orders, borrowed another Red Sox minor leaguer’s SUV to fill it up with 19 trays and drove like geriatrics the 6-mile journey to JetBlue Park to get the coffees ready for the team. And they themselves, boarded a bus as part of the split squad facing the Tigers that day, forgetting coffee for themselves. Ultimately, they ended up screwing up 2 orders, which honestly ain’t bad.
P00P Lives!
Ahead of the 2025 MLB season, NBCSports Philadelphia, the broadcast home to the Phillies, last month announced a new scorebug graphic that will effectively eliminate the infamous “P00P” scorebug created when the Phillies and Pirates play against each other. This news was obviously devastating to all of us with childlike whimsy, wonder, and minds. But in this week’s Grapefruit League matchup between the two teams, fans were rewarded with the return of the P00P scorebug!!
No word on whether this is just for Spring Training or if NBCSPhilly has decided revert to the OG scorebug. But for now, P00P LIVES!
A fun way to learn I’m a better artist than Kenta Maeda
Upon the Dodgers’ arrival to Tokyo for the Tokyo Series, Shohei Ohtani posted an Instagram carousel of him wearing this T-shirt which he says was drawn by Detroit Tigers pitcher and fellow countryman Kenta Maeda. The shirt is *SUPPOSED* to be Shohei with his dog Decoy (the resemblance is uncanny). The wholesome display showed me that my drawing skills could outmatch Maeda’s, and I’m not hating in the slightest. I would absolutely buy this shirt if Kenta decides to sell them.
My most famous Instagram follower
Admittedly, I haven’t been doing the best job at juggling trying to build this community across 9 million different social media platforms, especially when social media management is also my day job (and anyone who works in social media knows it’s absolutely not a “day” job). The GATBP Instagram often gets overlooked as I routinely fail to check up and engage on it.
But thanks to needing to post my Spring Training content, I’ve been on it every day for the past week. So, imagine my surprise when I checked my notifications to find that THE Mr. Met began following me!! I do not know what I did to bestow such an honor but what a wonderful little joy for the week. And I let other mascots know, they’re officially on notice.
There were a lot of questions on why only Mr. Met and what’s up with Mrs. Met and based on the bio, it notes that the account is for both of them, but then they should definitely recognize Mrs. Met in the handle too!!!
And that’s all for this week! What little joys will baseball bring me next week?