MLB will destroy Indians World Series champion gear instead of donating it to charity

Major League Baseball has decided to destroy all the T-shirts, hats and other gear it licensed to commemorate a Cleveland Indians World Series championship that didn’t happen.

For major sporting leagues, items for both teams participating in a title game or series are often created so fans of the winners can purchase the products immediately. Of course, that means a lot of merchandise featuring inaccurate information ends up left over.

Since 2005, MLB has donated such items to World Vision, a charity that distributes that gear to countries in need. But, as Huffington Post first reported, that won’t be the case this year.

“In past years we have used World Vision, but we have moved our policy to destroying the merchandise,” MLB spokesman Matt Bourne said. “The reason is to protect the team from inaccurate merchandise being available or visible in the general marketplace.”

Jim Fischerkeller, director of corporate engagement for World Vision, told ESPN he didn’t know of any past instances where the MLB-donated merchandise made it back into North America. But he also said his organization had no problem with the league’s decision “as long as it had nothing to do with leakage of product by our organization in the past.”

charles.schilken@latimes.com

Twitter: @chewkiii