A little while ago, the NBA decided to ditch traditional leather balls, not for vegan reasons, or anything like improved function, but so ball makers would have a new ball to market.  Players were duped (my opinion) into thinking the new ball was good.  Maybe it was, in a sand papery, hand chafe-y way.  ‘The new sythetic ball takes the NBA from pomp and showmanship to masochism…’, ‘Watch Lebron dunk and bleed!’… Anyway, the NBA did something it rarely does: it admitted the new ball was wack, and went back to tradition.

Major League Baseball has made a similar blunder: replacing ages old wool caps with sythetics.  Lets hear the reasons.  They really are brilliant.

*new polyester blend model designed to wick away sweat before it can stream down a player’s face.

*The change is part of commissioner Bud Selig’s focus on boosting player performance, a Major League Baseball official said, and follows a general trend toward moisture-managing “performance” materials in sports apparel.

*”They look exactly the same, they breathe more and they won’t shrink,” Verlander said. “The best thing is, when it rains, the hats won’t stink like the wool ones did.”

*”Sweat stains, and you can’t see it but they start to smell a bit, and also with certain colors they tend to bleed when the players sweat, so if you watch the Cardinals or teams that wear red caps, occasionally you’ll see red bleeding into the white on logos.

They forsaking 100 years of tradition for faith in junk science.  Polyester, on a hot day, cant wick moisture fast enough, so it has to absorb it, or let it run down your face.  Since its hydrophobic, its just gunna run down your face.  Wool, on the other hand, wicks moisture, but also can absorb a lot of sweat, keeping your face drier, longer.  Wicking is junk science when the outside humidity is around the same as whats under your cap, so the polyester doesnt even work in certain climates.  Sheep on the other hand, live in a wide variety of ecosystems.

On the second point:  the commissioner isnt interested in sythetics because of anything other than marketing and capital.  They are far cheaper to produce, with higher profit margins.

“They look exactly the same, they breathe more and they won’t shrink,”    Sythetics dont develop beausage.  They just look like shit, quick.  That said, they are cheaper to replace when they do look like shit.   An old wool hat looks broken in, an old sythetic hat looks broken.

“”The best thing is, when it rains, the hats won’t stink like the wool ones did.”  I would rather smell like wet wool for 30 minutes than like sweaty sythetics for even a minute. Some of the players dont wash a hat all season.  Try that with a sythetic, not antimicrobial…thats some funky shit…

As to dyes bleeding.  Get better dyes.  Jeez.