Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

I mentioned in last week’s post that the San Bernardino Spirit cap would be the last in the “Soto Sweepstakes” series. The news of Modesto losing their team in the 2026 California League Shuffle convinced me to buy a cap from a team that played there. I am not sold on either of the current Modesto Nuts hats so I am looking further back in time at a Modesto A's retro although I would like to stay away from the later era  if possible as the elephant exudes more Oakland energy than I am comfortable with on a cap logo. All this considered, my best option seems to be the "M" script worn from 1977 through 1992. As a San Francisco Giants fan, I am a bit uneasy about wearing an A's-related logo, especially one formerly worn by Oakland superstars such as Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire and most notably, Rickey Henderson who passed away on December 21, 2024. Even though I loathed the A's, I admired Henderson as a young baseball fan so I will make the exception here. If I had to ...

Since the close of the 2024 MLB season, I have had no shortage of blog topics thanks to the flurry of roster moves this offseason. Ass a San Francisco Giants fan I am thrilled at the seven-year deal the team made with shortstop Willy Adames and I am also hoping for a solid addition at first base like Christian Walker and as well as a strong starting pitcher like Corbin Burnes. Even if neither happens, the Adames signing is huge but sadly I do not have a Giants-related cap with a "W" or "A" logo to write about like I did when having a bit of fun  with the "J for Juan" on the Jackson Mets cap for last week's post. Perhaps the "S" can be for Soto on this week's San Bernardino Spirit hat and thus be the conclusion of the "Soto Sweepstakes" celebrations. This week's post is my first featuring a cap from Topperzstore and I have to give them credit for knocking it out of the park with the simple white "S" over the gold st...

When I sat down to write last week's Joplin Miners post, I had yet not considered how the cap logo's "J" could have been a suitable pre-farewell tribute to Juan Soto and his time ending with the New York Yankees but depending on how you look at things, it could also have been regarded as a plea for him to stay in the Bronx! Either way, the Soto Sweepstakes ended when news broke this past Sunday night that the star outfielder agreed to some comically large compensation amount  by signing with the New York Mets. And t his time I will take credit for the tie-in with Soto and the "J" on the logo of this "Fresh Mesh" snapback the Jackson Mets wore from 1979 through 1987. The last Fresh Mesh cap I wrote about was this 1988 Greensboro Hornets post  back in April 2021 but both logos are very close in terms of my love for them. I'm really surprised how clean the sweatband is on this hat which could very well be 40 years old at this point. I am pretty s...

In honor December 6 being National Miners Day, this week's Fresh Fitted Friday selection is an Ebbets Field Flannels retro inspired by the cap the Joplin Miners wore in 1950. I have had this day earmarked on my calendar for a few years now as I wanted to make sure the post was published on the day itself so cheers to that! And most importantly, thank you to the miners! My preference is to have an embroidered logo on my Ebbets hats but every once in a while I grin and bear it when I have to pick one up with this sort of stitched felt letter. The "Ebbets" and "Made in USA" tag combo is classic. I am thrilled to pop the tag on this one and bring it into the rotation! This is a great team shot featuring Mickey Mantle front and center where he belongs! This commemorative minor league card of Miner Mantle was part of a special and limited 5 card set Topps released in 2012 using the 1952 style.   Mantle's card is fantastic but I am a Giants fan first and foremost ...

I might be breaking some sort of rivalry rule by posting a New York Yankees hat for this week's Fresh Fitted Friday post immediately following last week's Baltimore "City Connect" cap but please not however mistake this seemingly brazen selection as anything other than me paying respects to Mariano Rivera as MLB's all-time saves leader turns 55 years old today! My side patch obsession most likely started with the 2007 All-Star Game caps  and it only grew when I moved to New York in 2010 which was highlighted in a post or two   featuring the commemorative caps I purchased while in attendance at Yankee Stadium during the game Derek Jeter reached the 3,000 hit milestone on July 9, 2011. I acted on my side patch impulse once again at the end of that season when Rivera passed Trevor Hoffman's saves record—which only stood for less than a year as he retired following the 2010 season—as the Yankees memorialized with the patch on this week's cap. Interestingly e...

This upcoming Thanksgiving will once again be spent with friends who live a thirty minutes drive away from Camden Yards so this week's Fresh Fitted Friday selection keeps the City Connect theme going with the cap the Baltimore Orioles have worn since becoming the 19th team to launch a uniform for MLB's wildly successful engagement. In contrast to last week's Tampa Bay cap which I love because of its exuberance, here I appreciate the understated elegance of the "B" and the extra significance it holds being the first time the Orioles have worn a birdless cap since 1963 which was their only year doing so. Like last week's sweatband and undervisor, this one goes off on both aspects which I am thrilled about.  I especially love the aspirational message of "you can't clip these wings" here! Detractors of City Connect claim it is a cash grab but for smaller market teams like Baltimore which could use extra exposure and revenue, I fail to see how that is...

In my Milwaukee Brewers City Connect "Grill" cap  post from this past summer, I provided tiers of where each team's City Connect kits ranked in my opinion and while the hat was not the on-field design the Brewers wore for their City Connect games, that exclusive design from Hat Club was my preferred choice between the two. I mentioned then I had gotten some actual City Connect on-field caps and the Tampa Bay Rays cap has the honor of being the first to be posted here, although sadly my driving force in choosing it for this week's Fresh Fitted Friday post was the passing of my Uncle Bobby in Tampa. He was instrumental in getting me to appreciate baseball in my early years and you will never forget the person who taught you how to throw a fastball. I never got a chance to see a Rays game with him but I will be wearing this City Connect hat in tribute whenever I make my first trip to their new ballpark which is slated to open in 2026. I brought up both Juan Soto and the...

This Harrisburg Senators "Road Cap" was selected for this week's  Fresh Fitted Friday post  as tribute to Kamala Harris who served a term as a United States Senator from California from 2016 until assuming her current role of U.S. Vice President in 2021. Earlier this week, V.P. Harris lost her campaign for the office of U.S. President which makes the subject of this week's post the fourth in a row to have the "Didn't Work Out This Time" theme. Ahead of writing this week, I intended to claim that I do not make a habit of churning politically concentrated posts but looking back through the archives confirms this is the third time the attention shifted to  Presidential  matters. While this blog started in 2011, the election in 2012 was not covered as my only post that year was in April. AT any rate, this coming Monday is also Veterans Day so the patriotic focus feels today even more apt. Beyond the flag-loving aspect of this cap, I am enthralled by the comb...

Over the past few weeks, I have created something of a tradition by posting caps of teams that have fallen in the MLB postseason and this week's Albany-Colonie Yankees cap completes it. This one stings a bit more though because I was at  Yankee Stadium for Game 5 of the World Series this past Wednesday and had to suffer through watching the Dodgers clinch over the Yankees. As a fan of the Giants and Yankees that was a tough experience. Coincidentally, I spent this past weekend in Albany to see some live music and surprisingly received lots of anti-Yankee comments from folks over the first two nights the concerts took place because of the Hudson Valley Renegades " Hudson Line " cap I wore. I suppose those detractors could have been Dodgers fans or perhaps even Red Sox fans but in all likelihood, you could chalk it up to everyone hates the Yankees except for Yankees fans. I flew under the radar on the third and final night by wearing a Staten Island Pizza Rats cap howe...

I took a break from writing last week as I was simply too invested in the ALCS and NLCS to even formulate a coherent sentence and besides that I did not have an interesting hat to write about! But now that the Mets have been eliminated by the Dodgers, now is as good a time as any to showcase a fun hat to honor an otherwise outstanding year for The Kings of Queens. I mentioned Rosh Hashanah in my Eugene Emeralds post so those who celebrate can hopefully appreciate the of symbols of hope for  health, prosperity and general sweetness in the new year that apples represent.  Grey undervisor brings the retro vibes which a perfect match to the classically Amazin' royal blue and orange elements in the cap's design This is such a clean cap overall, I think I will be wearing this cap around town frequently.  After the Yankees punched their ticket to the World Series with their  ALCS  Game 5 win over Cleveland this past Saturday night, I became a ball of nervous energy as ...

At the time of writing, the New York Mets and New York Yankees have both come away as NLDS and  ALDS champions respectively and I could not be more excited about the increased possibility of my first Subway Series as a resident of New York! The rest of the country is more likely to drool at the prospect of a World Series in which the Yankees face off against the Los Angeles Dodgers and even with that, the San Francisco Giants fan in me would be thrilled to watch the Dodgers lose on baseball's biggest stage. And my third best outcome would be for the San Diego Padres to have a chance to avenge their 1998 World Series loss against the Yankees but I'm holding out hope for the Mets as of now! These  scenarios all assume the Yankees come out on top in their ALCS matchup against either the Detroit Tigers or Cleveland Guardians but neither of these teams appear to be the pennant winners for this season in my estimation. Well, hopefully I did not just jinx the whole thing but if I did...

Just last week, I attended my final New York Yankees games of the season but unfortunately had to see them lose to the Baltimore Orioles on Tuesday and then again to the Pittsburgh Pirates on Saturday for Paul Skenes' final start of 2024. Had I known that the Pirates would pull Skenes after just two innings, my decision to venture to the Bronx on that rainy afternoon might have played out differently but  despite the loss  I am grateful to the Yankees for putting forth their best efforts as well as their fans who by dumping their tickets for cheap allowed me to see the potential Rookie of the Year strike out Juan Soto, Aaron Judge and Jazz Chisolm Jr. This "load management" that is de rigueur makes sense to a point but teams not competing because their last games "don't count" is disenchanting to fan. I experienced similar feelings of dismay  the following day when Blake Snell opted to skip his final start for my San Francisco Giants because the game "h...