If you were wondering why the Dodgers were sporting special camouflaged hats this weekend, wonder no more – it’s Armed Forces Weekend throughout Major League Baseball.

2021 marks the second season that MLB has recognized Armed Forces Weekend with special camouflage caps, having also done so in 2019. Before that, teams wore camo caps and special uniforms only over Memorial Day Weekend.

But for soon-to-be (on May 31) 49-year-old Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, Armed Forces Weekend carries with it an extra special meaning.

As Dodger fans may or may not know, Roberts comes from a military family. His father, Waymon, who passed away on March 17, 2017, enlisted in the Marine Corps as a teenager in 1968 and retired in 1998 as a Master Gunnery Sergeant. While in the service, Waymon met and married his wife Eiko, a Japanese citizen, while stationed in Japan. In 1972, the couple gave birth to Roberts and later to their daughter Melissa.

“I think about my father every day, but when I put on this camo, certainly I think about him a little bit more,” Roberts said, after his team’s 9-6 win over the Miami Marlins on Friday night. “And as I look at this screen (of himself on Zoom wearing his camo hat), I see my father … like I’m looking at my dad. But I think for baseball to have Military Awareness Weekend and for us as ballplayers to go out there and represent our servicemen and women, I think it’s important, and those men and women give us the opportunity to do this, to do what we love to do. So this is the least we can do.”

As does Roberts, the Dodgers, and all of Major League Baseball, the entire staff at ThinkBlueLA.com sends a heartfelt thank you to all who have and continue to serve in our nation’s armed forces.

God Bless You, and God Bless America.

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