Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

In celebration of the 2013 World Series being underway, I thought it would be fun to showcase a couple of caps from a Pacific Coast League franchise where St. Louis outfielder Carlos Beltran played: the Spokane Indians. The PCL is a league that was officially founded in 1903, just two years after MLB's American League. I find comfort in the fact that baseball has been played in the Pacific Northwest ever since the United States' Western Expansion reached the  Oregon Territory .  So let's get to talking about this cap. First up you'll notice that the logo features the letters "S" and "I" interlocking on a royal blue crown.  As many of you know from reading this site, I love the style of serifs used here and I really enjoy that the "S" is so similar to the"S" in the Shreveport Captains cap logo. It's no secret that I heavily favor these old school caps made of 100% wool with the green-underbrims. I especi...

I wasn't into this Houston Astros logo when it showed up in 1994 but now I think it's a classy alternative to the garish style of old...and current, though I like them both!* This has that messy style of New Era crown panel lining that I have mentioned previously. Here is a good view of the sweatband tags that were used in 1999. We are almost two months into MLB's 2015 season and I don't think that anyone's preseason predictions had the Houston Astros playing as well as they are. I hope I'm not jinxing them By saying that (although I think I just did jinx them; I'm sorry, Astros fans!) but  I think it's a welcome change of pace considering the homogenous selection of successful teams over the past few years. This unexpected success is  good for Houston fans and I feel that it's beneficial for baseball overall. I like it when people get excited about clubs that aren't necessarily their hometown team. Even though I'm ...

Not long ago I picked up this 1999 Columbus Clippers cap but haven't worn it until right now because it looks like next week will be my first Yankees game of the year. I'll need to be rocking a Yankees cap with some uniqueness to it and I think this will do the trick. This is the classic "Big C" logo that the Clippers wore from 1996 through 2008. You can pick up a legit reproduction at Sole Collector while supplies last. Get on that! The sweatband tags match the ones from the  1998 World Series New York Yankees cap , yet the "New Era" flag didn't show up  on Clippers caps until 1999, making this the earliest year this cap could have been produced. That MILB batter man is completely murdered-out. I haven't seen one like that before or since this cap! The Clippers wore this cap from 1996 through the 2008 season and while it's not going to be the most obscure cap in the bleachers, I still doubt most of the fans will recognize...

Behold the signature colorway of the 1990's: teal and purple.  Here we see the same inner sweatband tags as these previously featured caps: Stockton Ports , Midland Angels and Hickory Crawdads If it wasn't for the MILB batter man logo I'd guess this was a Florida Marlins cap for sure.  You have to respect a cap that keeps the tags unpopped for so long. After last week's spotlight on a cap from a South Carolina team, I thought it would be appropriate to continue that theme for this week's Fresh Fitted  with a relic from the mid-1990's.  This cap's garish "Charlotte Hornets style" colorway of teal and purple sums up that era to a T.   While I'm less than enthusiastic about the dated colorway, I'm not completely sold on the cap's logo either.  I get that it's a cute dog biting so hard on a bat that it breaks in half but this logo has been around for almost twenty years and it hasn't evolved v...

This version of the Capital City Bombers cap differs from others that the Bombers wore in the 1990's as it has a black brim rather than the more commonly used red brim.    This logo definitely fits the bill of "zany minor league design from the early 1990's.  The sweatband is clearly showing signs of age more than other caps that I've collected from this era but they can't all be so crisp and pristine.  I was revisiting an episode of House of Cards recently and I noticed for the first time that there was a brief mention of the Greenville Drive. For those who are unaware, the Greenville Drive happens to be a (real-life) minor league team based in South Carolina, which is the home-state of (fictional character) Frank Underwood. During their first year as a member of the South Atlantic League in 2005, the team was known as the Greenville Bombers. I suppose they hung on to the name that they had used in their former home-city of Columbia to see if ...