Muni: Where baseball and unicorns collide seamlessly

We’re a San Francisco Giants kind of people here at Muni Diaries. But, contrary to certain belief systems (The Church of Being an Oakland A’s Fan), you can root root root for both home teams unless it’s 1989 and you’re busy being terrified during an earthquake. I was eight, and that shit was scary.

That said, I adore this backpack, which was a 2014 A’s promotional giveaway designed by actual A’s players. MLB.com had some insider-baseball (see what we did there) history into the why, but we tapped one of our go-to A’s fans, Ericka, for more colorful fan perspective:

A lot of teams make the bullpen rookies [ed. note: rookie relief pitchers] do silly stuff like dress up or carry around a crazy bag. The A’s had a Hello Kitty backpack Sean Doolittle carried with pride his rookie season. The next season, they got a Despicable Me unicorn backpack, but it didn’t fit all the stuff they needed (necessities like candy and seeds) so they attached it to the original Hello Kitty, creating an absolute abomination in the best way. It was silly, the fans loved it, and it fit so perfectly with the whole Island of Misfit Toys mentality the A’s have, they decided to make a promo out of it. Doolittle and Ryan Cook designed it. The actual player photos on the backpack are the perfect size to be covered with a small, round button (I hexed out Jim Johnson almost immediately because he’s the g-d worst) so as the guys move on through the revolving door that is Oakland baseball, you can modify without losing the integrity of the unicorn. It’s definitely one of my favorite promotions ever.

My takeaway is that Oakland blasted San Francisco out of its irony orbit with a backpack Lisa Frank would’ve crapped her pants to design. Well done, A’s. Well done.

h/t Muni rider Annette: “Sighting: anyone care to explain this unicorn backpack with baseball player vignettes? #idontsports #icanteven”

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