Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

The South Atlantic League celebraish officially "goes to 11" today and I think I'll be wrapping up the series next week as I'm sure everyone is about ready for a new topic. Until then, let's talk about this sweet 1980's Asheville Tourists cap which is all about simplicity —while perhaps even teetering on the edge of basic— although is a classic nonetheless.




A cursory glance of Tourists cards from 1986 and 1987 shows players wearing hats with this week's logo and on a royal blue crown, albeit with a grey underbrim, unlike this week's cap. The navy crown seen on this 1989-93 Asheville Tourists hat I wrote about just a little over two years ago proves this cap is from no later than 1988.
I had troubling finding Asheville Tourists baseball cards from 1981 through 1985 so I can't say with certainty the earliest year this cap could be from. The closest thing I could find is this image of former Houston Astros pitcher Charlie Kerfield as a member of the 19…

I can't recall when I first saw a cap that was designed by Brandiose but I'm guessing it was the current Asheville Tourists home cap that I picked up in 2014. I think until then I was more into collecting vintage caps but once I acquired my most sought-after logos, I was better equipped to appreciate the recent designs that had come onto the scene.

We have seen a great many Asheville Tourists alternates ever since their Brandiose rebrand was pushed live in 2011 but I believe this week's "White-Navy-Light Blue" colorway was done as a custom rather than an on-field.



The starry night motif really pops on top of the white panels but I also think the blue stitching along the edges of those panels pops but in a distracting way. This is definitely the oldest cap I've seen with that contrasting stitching so it might be all that nonsense started in 2014.





I've got more Asheville caps than any other team but this is my only one with the craftsman-style "A" on…

Do you ever hear a recording of your voice and think to yourself, "there's no way that's me" even though you are 100% certain that the voice is in fact yours? Well, I just had that feeling when I went back and read my blog post for a Hickory Crawdads cap back in 2011.

It was only the fourth hat that I had written about and I suppose I don't recognize myself because it feels like I've learned so much about the history of MILB caps over the last eight years. Frankly, it was somewhat liberating to just be writing about a newly acquired cap that I appreciated simply because it reminded me of my youth.

Even though the photography in that post is very cringeworthy and the text at the end of the post is mysteriously cut off mid-sentence, I remember being happy that I was  reacquainting myself with the Hickory Crawdads and I'm experiencing similar emotions as I'm revisiting an earlier version of that cap for this week's post.




One thing I've learned over …

Dear reader, I feel that now is the time to dedicate a post with photos and descriptions of the caps in my continually evolving "Wish List". I haven't exactly been bombarded with trade offers lately so maybe having them all featured here might change that. 

Hat Club has been killing it with their recent releases of retro MILB logos from the 1980's and 1990's so the first few caps on this list are ones that they'd do well to release (or re-release in the case of the 1993-95 Utica Blue Sox, 1995-2000 Kissimmee Cobras and the 1994 Appleton Foxes).

Continuing with the theme of former Toronto Blue Jays affiliates in the South Atlantic League, I'm obliged to discuss Toronto's presence in South Carolina which began in 1981 with the Florence Blue Jays, who in 1987 became the Myrtle Beach Blue Jays.

The team rebranded as the Myrtle Beach Hurricanes in 1991 and after the 1992 season, moved to Hagerstown, MD to become the newest incarnation of the Hagerstown Suns where their affiliation with Toronto continued. 

Because the team only existed for two seasons, finding an original hat is an exercise in futility so when I learned Hat Club was releasing a retro, I had to pick it up.






I had some reservations about pulling the trigger on this cap because the logo is noticeably larger than the OG. Based on how fast the hat sold out, I believe this was a conscious decision by Hat Club as perhaps they felt they'd sell more hats with an aggrandized logo. For reference, here are some photos of the more dainty logo on the OG:







One last thing: …