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Published On: February 17th, 2016

Kalamazoo, MI – In what has been dubbed “the most 2016 thing to happen to baseball”, the Kalamazoo Growlers announced a poll Monday morning to let fans choose which of their favorite emojis would be featured on jerseys worn by the team during its August 13th game against the Rockford Rivets. Voting is open until March 1st and can be done here.

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Within hours of the promotion's release, it went viral – first being tweeted by ESPN’s Darren Rovell and ESPN’s SportsCenter, and followed by articles from Cut4 (MLB.com), CBS Sports, Sports Illustrated, Yahoo Sports, NBC Sports, Fox Sports, USA Today and many local news affiliates.

Hear Growlers Vice President, Brian Colopy talk about the promotion on WKZO: WKZO Emojersey Radio Interview and WWMT: Channel 3 Emojersey Story 

Love it or hate it, thousands of Twitter users have weighed in with their opinion of the cartoon-covered jersey and the Growlers website has been flooded with votes from across the nation. Two sports sites have even started competing campaigns to have the eggplant and peach emojis featured on the jersey.

With all the viral attention and after numerous requests, the Growlers have made the jerseys available for pre-order on the team’s merchandise page: https://squareup.com/market/kalamazoo-growlers.  Also, the team expanded the promotion Wednesday by adding a Emoji Hat to the night's festivities.  The top emoji vote getter will be featured on the team's hat that night.  Fans can pre-order this hat on the team's merchandise page as well.

Minor league baseball has long been known for its crazy promotions and the Growlers are excited to be a part of the buzz this season. Of course, they are no strangers to such attention, having won Ballpark Digest’s Promotion of the Year in 2014 for the Selfie Jersey, which was featured on Good Morning America, MLB Network, ESPN and many more national outlets.

The Northwoods League is the proven leader in the development of elite college baseball players. The 22-year old summer collegiate league is the largest organized baseball league in the world with 18 teams, drawing significantly more fans, in a friendly ballpark experience, than any league of its kind. A valuable training ground for coaches, umpires and front office staff, more than 140 Northwoods League players have advanced to Major League Baseball, including Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer (WAS) and MLB All-Stars Chris Sale (CWS), Jordan Zimmermann (DET), Curtis Granderson (NYM), Lucas Duda (NYM) and Ben Zobrist (KC). All league games are viewable via the Northwoods League website.