Major League Baseball will be letting its players choose the name on the back of their jerseys the weekend of August 25-27, and unsurprisingly, none of the jerseys or shirts are available in women’s cuts or sizes.
The men’s jerseys, which include Brad Hand dubbing himself “BROTATO” and Carl Edwards Jr. going by “CARL’S JR.,” are running $200 through the league’s online store.
It’s a lot of cash to participate in a player’s inside joke with his teammates, but I’ve seen custom jerseys a lot worse than Michael Blazek’s “JUS BLAZE,” and picking up a Yankees No. 99 “ALL RISE” jersey seems legitimately cool, so go ahead and get your capitalism on, I guess.
But a better offer is the blank jerseys, which are pullovers and in non-standard designs and colors. Or, like, get this “TUVE” shirsey for a lot less money.
And yet, despite the big rollout, making sure that basically every website with even a passing interest in baseball would pick out some of the funniest player nicknames, you’re shit out of luck if you’re someone with hips, boobs, or generally shaped in a less tube-like manner.
There are, wildly enough, women who like professional baseball and may even like going out in public with one of these. MLB has gotten much better about rolling out cuts and sizes for women in its standard-issue merchandise, and special-edition lines, like the Fourth of July stuff, and even gear made specifically for women. Further, most of that merch is sold without rhinestones and in actual team colors, which (I think I can speak for most of us) is a good thing.
I reached out to MLB to ask about the men-only rollout (with a few youth items sprinkled in, which is kind of weird because the league is also calling this the “Little League Classic” collection).
Update (4:33 p.m. ET): A spokesperson for MLB told Deadspin: “We unveiled the first wave of products with nicknames today. There is more merchandise, including products for women, that will be introduced for Players Weekend.”
It is frustrating when you are ready to give your money to the league for their very obvious marketing ploy and you’re limited to shit that probably doesn’t fit you. Maybe the revenue we women bring in isn’t worth the effort, but can it really be that difficult to print small batches of shirseys? Whatever! Keep your “THOR” gear. None of us were into that guy anyway.