Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

Welcome to the last post of the 2019  New York-Penn League  celebration! I began the series with the primary cap worn by the Staten Island Yankees when they suit up as the "Pizza Rats" so I'm bookending it with the "NYC" cap.  Both of the "Pizza Rats" logos are fantastic but the "NYC" is quintessentially New York as the design is a callback to the bygone subway tokens of the past. The "Y" as a slice of pizza with a bite taken out of the crust—presumably by a rat—is an incredible touch. I was hoping to catch a  "Pizza Rats" theme night this year but sadly, that did not happen. Rats!  The one game I saw this season was this past Wednesday night as the team  played under its usual moniker and this week's cap is the one I wore to the game. I consider myself to be very fortunate to have procured a "Made in U.S.A" cap last season. My  Baby Bombers experience  this week reinforced my prefere...

The landing gear is about to come down on the New York-Penn league festivities and I'm making sure the last few Fresh Fitted Friday selections are super special, starting with this week's New Jersey Cardinals cap that I believe to be from 1999 to 2001. The New Jersey Cardinals played in the NYPL from 1994 (in which they won the League Title) through 2005 and wore this cap logo for parts of the 1997 season and then all the way through their final season. I've identified the sweatband tags as being similar to ones I've seen on the following caps from 1999-2001: Augusta GreenJackets, Harrisburg Senators and Trenton Thunder. Second week in a row with a cap featuring a bred MILB batterman! Also of note is all of the aforementioned caps also feature "The Nation's Highest Quality Fitted Cap" verbiage on the satin taping inside the crown. The 12 seasons the Cardinals played in Augusta, NJ isn't long when compared to stalwart cities of the l...

This week's Fresh Fitted Friday selection is another New York-Penn League classic: a Tri-City ValleyCats cap which I surmise is from 2008 based on the sweatband tags that will be discussed below. The ValleyCats have remained faithful to this exact cap logo ever since the the team's inaugural season in 2002. Very interesting to see the "Blue Box" style New Era and size tags considering those tags stopped being used when the MILB teams switched to the polyester caps. The MILB tags are the older style as well. Bred batterman tag here looks nice here and just so you know, the satin taping inside the crown features the "originators of the true fitted cap". If I had to choose one word to describe this team, it would be "consistency" as the ValleyCats have worn this same cap logo and maintained their affiliation to the Houston Astros ever since 2002 which was when the team began playing in Troy, NY.  I'm putting this one on the  ...

I've had a good time covering caps of classic New York-Penn League from current teams over the past few weeks but I'm switching gears for this week's Fresh Fitted Friday  by  paying tribute to a classic yet now defunct team: the Jamestown Jammers. I've mentioned this before but I used to work in the food and wine industry so I've got a special connection to grapes, which is a big reason I'm drawn to this cap.  The image used for this cap logo is of Bubba Grape, which is the mascot the team used for Jammers 2.0, an era that spanned from 2006 through the team's final season in 2014.  This cap could be from anywhere in between that time frame but you can cancel out 2006 through 2008 because the team wore wool caps with grey underbrims those seasons.  I'd say you could also negate the last few years of the Jammers 2.0 era because the satin taping as seen above features the "Originators of the True Fitted" text and as I dis...

This week's Fresh Fitted Friday  selection from the New York-Penn League takes us north of New York City metropolitan area to Duchess County which is where the Hudson Valley Renegades have played since their inaugural season in 1994. This cap logo was worn by the Renegades from 1994 up through 2003, which was their final season with the burgundy and green colorway.  In addition to the colorway switch-up in 2004, the MILB sweatband tag is from no later than 2003 which tells me that would be  the final year this cap could have been worn. For as long as this team has existed, it has relied on Studio Simon in Louisville Kentucky to design its entire brand identity. For an in-depth account of the team's rebrand in 2017, check out this  this excellent write-up   by Paul Caputo for SportsLogos.net. It takes a good amount of effort and desire to leave the city for fun day trips up to the Hudson Valley and while I definitely don't get up there enough, jus...