WHO APPROVED THIS?!?! 💀
— Rangers Nation (@rangers__nation) 6:04 PM – 09 March 2025
The dawn of a new MLB season has spawned a myriad of new collectible merchandise, from baseball cards to jerseys. But right now, caps are stealing all the headlines. New Era rolled out their new “Overlap” hats for the 2025 season earlier this week. However, the hats haven’t exactly been received well.
At first glance, these hats may not seem too bad. However, upon closer inspection, you might start to notice some unfortunate, questionable patterns. An even closer inspection would reveal that some of the new words created by these overlapped logos are rather NSFW. Particularly the Texas Rangers’ hat. In fact, the slip-up was so bad that the hat actually needed to be pulled from stores.
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While our Spanish-speaking readers already know what this says, our non-Spanish speakers may be scratching their heads. Well, one quick trip to Google and you’ll realize that the word written on the hat above is Spanish for slang for breasts.
This is a major slip-up for a company that has made similar mistakes in the past.
Less than a year ago, New Era released the hat above, offering a similarly vulgar word in plain English. How is it possible that a company makes such a mistake once, and less than a calendar year later, they make practically the same mistake?
This time is arguably worse, though. Not only is the Rangers’ hat laughably bad, but other hats suffered similar fates, although not as vulgar.
Click over to see the rest, which includes an Astros hat that reads as “ASHOS” because of the imposition of the “H” over “Astros”. This is what happens when there are no copy editors, and also when there’s no one on staff who understands even basic tourist-level Spanish. And as noted, those hats are gone, but they are not forgotten.
Now, the Rangers hat is generating big sales on the secondary market. Since Tuesday, six have sold on eBay, ranging from $200 to $1,000. MLBshop originally listed them for $44.99. One eBay seller has also listed knockoffs of the Rangers hat for $36, with 123 sold as of midday Wednesday.
Sometimes, capitalism works exactly as you’d want it to. My ASHOS hat is tipped to whoever made those knockoffs. You, sir or madam, are a true American hero. Fangraphs, BoingBoing, and the Chron have more.