With Colin Kaepernick back in the news, the Tennessee Smokies decided to have a little fun poking at the former NFL QB turned activist following the recent headlines.
Prior to the July 4th holiday, Nike was set to release a patriotic sneaker featuring the iconic Betsy Ross flag with 13 stars representing the original thirteen colonies, well, until Kaepernick intervened.
Kaepernick and others reportedly advised Nike not to release the sneaker, calling the Betsey Ross flag offensive, to which the footwear giant and Kaepernick sponsor obliged.
The Tennessee Smokies, a Double-A Minor League Baseball affiliate of the Chicago Cubs, decided to hop onto the train of those criticizing Kaepernick, drawing a larger than life Betsy Ross flag on their infield ahead of their game Thursday.
The team’s Twitter account tweeted out multiple photos of the design on their field Smokies Stadium in Kodak, Tennessee to the former QB with a cheeky caption.
After racking up more than 700 retweets and 2,000 likes in less than two hours, the team removed the post and tweeted out the following.
Regarding one of our recent tweets regarding @Kaepernick7 and our field design for tonight’s game, it was meant to be a light-hearted take on a current situation. We did not mean to offend anyone by it. If it did, we certainly apologize.
— Tennessee Smokies (@smokiesbaseball) July 4, 2019
