Academy Sports + Outdoors apologized to the Houston Astros fans, the Astros organization and Major League Baseball as a result of the inadvertent leak of small quantities of the new Astros product.
“We express our apologies to Houston Astros fans, our partners at the Houston Astros ball club, along with Major League Baseball for inadvertently releasing the new Astros t-shirts in limited quantity,” says Rodney Faldyn, Academy Sports + Outdoors CEO & President. “We take pride in our ongoing partnership with the Astros, and this oversight is not our standard business practice. We are looking forward to celebrating the official jersey launch with the Houston Astros on November 2, 2012.”
A limited quantity of the new Houston Astros product was released early to the sales floor of select Academy Sports + Outdoors store locations in Houston. That product has been removed from the sales floor and is no longer available for sale.
The merchandise that was displayed represented a small portion of the Astros new identity. The entire identity, including the primary logo, authentic field jerseys, batting practice jersey, caps and new mascot will be unveiled at the November 2nd Launch Party at Minute Maid Park at 6 p.m. (Gates open at 5 p.m.).
Over 5,000 fans will be in attendance to see the new uniforms modeled by current Astros players Justin Maxwell, Lucas Harrell, Jordan Lyles, and Jose Altuve along with rising stars Carlos Correa, George Springer, Jarred Cosart and Jonathan Singleton.
All vouchers for the Launch Party have been claimed, but for those not in attendance, the Astros will stream the event live on Astros.com.