In case you’re a depressed Indians fan, you should hurry up and go get some Indians World Series while you still can before it’s all destroyed and oddly not donated.
You’ve seen the meme around constantly whenever a team loses a championship. It has been said that losing t-shirts end up being donated around the world so in a sense, the team is a championship somewhere.
However, MLB is taking a different twist this year in regards to the Cleveland Indians memorabilia.
MLB spokesman Matt Bourne confirmed that all licensed items that call the Cleveland Indians the 2016 World Series champions must be handed over by retailers in order to destroy the products after the Chicago Cubs‘ victory in the seven-game series.
Since 2005, Major League Baseball has officially worked with World Vision, a charity that donates gear to needy countries. But Bourne said the league changed gears to “protect the team from inaccurate merchandise being available in the general marketplace.”
It does make sense when thought about. These items weren’t even allowed to be open.
Indians championship gear was shipped to retailers in Cleveland with the instruction that the boxes should only be opened if the Indians won. When the Indians lost 8-7 in Game 7, the retailers had to ship the boxes back to the licensee or to MLB.
Take a second and imagine if the Cubs had lost. They were highly favored to win and obviously won so imagine how much memorabilia would’ve been destroyed. Sorry depressed Indians fans, you can’t get your hands on this.