Cleveland fans won't be getting any merchandise celebrating an Indians World Series win—and neither will people in need around the world. Championship products are usually produced for both sides so they can be sold to celebrating fans. For 10 years starting in 2005, the losing side's championship T-shirts, etc., were donated to the charity World Vision, which helps the needy in developing countries, but MLB has decided to destroy this year's gear, ESPN reports. It was sent to retailers with the instruction that the boxes had to be returned unopened if Cleveland lost the series, which it did in Game 7.
"In past years we have used World Vision, but we have moved our policy to destroying the merchandise," an MLB spokesman tells the Huffington Post. "The reason is to protect the team from inaccurate merchandise being available or visible in the general marketplace." A World Vision spokesman says the charity wasn't notified of the decision but they don't have a problem with it, "as long as it had nothing to do with leakage of product by our organization in the past," because he's unaware of any MLB gear donated to World Vision making it back to North America. (More World Series stories.)
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