San Diego Padres baseball cap dropped due to swastika resemblance

“For the love of God, please don’t wear those swastika spring training hats,” tweeted AbmnbleShowMan.

By World Israel News Staff 

Major League Baseball’s preseason schedule hasn’t even started yet but the San Diego Padres have already stirred controversy. Actually, their caps have stirred controversy.

“The Padres officially haven’t worn the spring training caps that caused such a stir on social media when they were unveiled [in early February]. And now they only briefly will wear them,” wrote The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Last Tuesday, the day before pitchers and catchers officially reported, most players already working out at the team’s spring training site facility wore a brown cap with the interlocking “S” and “D” that the team will wear during the regular season, said the newspaper.

“This was instead of the Swinging Friar with the somewhat matrix-and digital-looking ‘SD’ over his torso that may or may not have resembled a swastika and may or may not have looked cheesy,” the paper wrote.

“The spring training hats have a swastika on it. FIX THIS NOW! This is unacceptable,” tweeted SammyGSanDiego on February 5.

“For the love of God, please don’t wear those swastika spring training hats,” wrote AbmnbleShowMan.

The uniform rebrand had received an “overwhelmingly positive response from Padres fans,” said Wayne Partello, Padres chief marketing officer, as quoted by the Union-Tribune.

Nevertheless, apparently because of the swastika uproar, “we’ve decided to wear our regular season brown caps with the gold ‘SD’ for the majority of spring training,” he added.

The Padres were expected to wear the controversial caps at least once on the field during spring training, said the San Diego newspaper, because they had been already sold to fans as the official on-field caps of spring training and regular season batting practice.

Major League Baseball and the New Era Cap Company designed the caps, said the report.