NEW YORK, NY – It’s become a ritual for most teams that when a player goes long ball, he is greeted inside the dugout with a prop. Teams like the Toronto Blue Jays bust out a jacket for every home run hit by their players. The L.A. Angels crown their slugger with a fireman’s helmet. The team up in da Bronx, who just started wearing facial hair, have yet to get involved with the ritual.
For a team that’s already connected for over one hundred home runs, the time is now to make that move. Since no one wants to step up, let me be the one to suggest that every home run hitter should be crowned with a police officer’s 8 point hat.
The police connection is a no-brainer for this Yankees homer celebration. The interlocking NY originated from the NYC Police Department when it appeared on a Medal of Valor, which was designed by Louis Tiffany of Tiffany & Co. in 1877.
The 1909 team, which was known as the Highlanders, adopted the logo when one of its club owners named William Devery, who was a former NYPD chief, gave it its blessing.
Another NYPD connection is when George Steinbrenner, along with his buddy, Olympian bronze medal winner Jim Fuchs, founded the Silver Shield Foundation back in 1982. The charity pays for the college tuition of the orphans of police officers that were killed in the line of duty.
So as this once-conservative Yankees team tries to get with the times, a police hat needs to be paraded around whenever a Yankee homers. It will bring awareness to the real heroes who have become so despised by society that only the NY Yankees can convince Yankees Universe that the Boys in Blue are all right.
