Pirates sickened by pic of 'Jihadi John' wearing Bucs ball cap
He would be the Pittsburgh Pirates' most unwanted and unwelcome fan.
A photograph surfaced Friday of Mohammed Emwazi, identified as the Islamic State terrorist known as “Jihadi John” and linked to several beheading videos, wearing a black ball cap with a yellow Pirates “P” on it.
The Pirates organization, in a statement released Friday, called the photograph “absolutely sickening.”
“I would rather him be wearing a Red Sox hat. A Cardinals or a Brewers hat would be better for us,” said John Coen, manager of Yinzers in the Burgh, a Strip District sports merchandise store. “I'm hoping he's not a supporter of the team.”
The British news outlet Sky News broadcast the photo of Kuwaiti-born Emwazi, whose family moved to London when he was 6, claiming it was from when he studied at the University of Westminster in London.
The university did not know how Sky News obtained the photo and has not made the picture public, a spokesman said. In a statement, the university acknowledged that Emwazi is a 2009 computer programming graduate.
“If the allegations of terrorist activity are true, we are shocked and sickened by the news. Our thoughts are with the victims and their families,” the university said in the statement.
Two U.S. government sources told Reuters that Emwazi is “Jihadi John,” the black-clad terrorist brandishing a knife and speaking with an English accent in videos released by the Islamic State in which hostages including Americans, Britons and Syrians were decapitated.
“The classic gold P stands for Pittsburgh and is worn by our players, coaches and fans with a great sense of pride,” the Pirates said in the statement. “It is absolutely sickening to everyone within the Pirates organization, and to our great fans, to see this murderer wearing a Pirates cap in this old photo.”
In the photo, Emwazi looks straight at the camera with a blank look on his face. The bill of the Pirates cap is relatively flat.
“You see people wearing different hats all the time. Just because he's wearing a certain kind of hat, I don't think that makes him a Pirates fan,” said Pirates pitcher Charlie Morton.
Criminals have long associated themselves with team logos.
Edwin Chambers Dodson, a prolific Southern California bank robber in the 1980s and 1990s, was known as the “Yankee Bandit” because of the baseball cap he wore.
The North Carolina Gang Investigators Association published a three-page list of gangs that use sports team logos. Latin Kings wear Pirates merchandise because of the colors black and gold. Members of People Nation, a Chicago-area gang, wear it for the prominent “P,” according to the list.
Steven Greenberg, the executive in residence for sports marketing at Duquesne University and head of marketing for the Pirates in the late 1980s and 1990s, said the team should not worry about the effect the photo could have on the organization's reputation.
“I'm sure he's not a fan. I'm sure it deals more with style and color,” Greenberg said, adding that nightly news broadcasts showed photos of criminals wearing Pirates shirts and hats all the time when he worked for the team.
Pirates hats account for 1.4 percent of all MLB hats sold in 2015, said Ryan Sullivan, a research analyst at SportsOneSource, a Charlotte-based firm that tracks merchandise sales. Yankee hats account for more than 30 percent.
Style, not fans, often drives hat sales.
“The top sellers are the Dodgers and Yankees, and I think that's because of the ‘NY' and the ‘LA,' ” Sullivan said, referring to the logos of both teams. “They are both iconic cities.”
Staff writer Rob Biertempfel and Reuters contributed to this report. Aaron Aupperlee is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-320-7986 or aaupperlee@tribweb.com.
