Viñeros de Tri-City (Tri-City Dust Devils - "Copa de la Diversión")

For this week's post, I decided to shift from beer to wine with this Viñeros de Tri-City cap that the Tri-City Dust Devils wear for their "Copa de la Diversión" games. As a former Napa Valley resident, I have a special appreciation for the enological nod in the design and a Copa design seems like a fun way to honor National Hispanic Heritage Month which is annually observed from September 15 to October 15 in the United States.

I am also taking a break from trying in a cap of a playoff-bound team and in fact going in the opposite direction because if the Detroit Tigers somehow squeak into a Wild Card spot that leaves the Los Angeles Angels—who are the Dust Devils parent club—as the MLB team with the longest playoff drought as they have not appeared in the postseason since being swept by the Kansas City Royals in the 2014 American League Division Series.

 I love how the winegrower here resembles a brunet Elroy Jetson and who I like to refer to as Brunellroy as a portmanteau of the Jetsons heir and the sangiovese grape which is referred to as Brunello in the Tuscan town of Montalcino. 

Like most caps produced nowadays, this one features the "Made In Bangladesh" tag which tells you straightaway that the quality is not going to be up to snuff when compared to the "Made in USA" caps of the not-so-distant past.

For the second week in a row, I've got another flamboyantly colored hat but unlike previous iterations of this cap which featured a Merlot colored cap and crown, the green here breaks up the sameness while also signifying the vines of the wine-growing regions in Eastern Washington. The Merlot on the batterman also pops a lot more against the green crown too.

Between the wine grape harvest months of August and October, I often reminisce on my years living in Napa and the good times spent with folks in the wine industry. Many of those memories were made at Russian River Brewing Company in nearby Santa Rosa where they brew a beer named "It takes a lot of great beer to make great wine!" which is an oft-repeated saying among winemakers during the harvest season.

It makes sense that when you spend the whole day in the heat around grapes, you will likely want to cool down with a cold beer with fresh hops to needed to cleanse your palate. I am not sure if the reverse is true for as many in the beer crowd but that just goes to show how universally appreciated beer can be. By contrast, wine is more temperamental as juice output and taste inevitably varies by year and as well as among different regions.

To that point, my mention of the "Made in Bangladesh" tag in the caption of the second photo above brought to mind how a certain aspect of cap collecting can be fetishized in ebbs and flows until a new point of focus has been identified. Considering I got my first fitted cap in the early 1990's, the grey undervisor was all I ever knew until many years later when I found out about the the green undervisors of the previous years.

And when MLB switched from caps made of wool to polyester, it became my mission to hoard as many of the discontinued variants. I now have stacks of caps that are likely getting eaten by moths at this very moment but hey, at least I have something that isn't available anymore! I see a similar parallel with current collectors who fixate on "Made in USA" caps and while I no longer buy caps as voraciously, I can respect the drive to procure gems.

 

This week's Fresh Fitted Friday selection is not going on the Trading Block however please don't hesitate to reach out if you want any other cap from that list and you are willing to part with any of the hats on my Wish List.

As always, thanks for coming back to read about baseball hat geekery. If you'd like to discuss a trade or simply just chat about hats, please feel free to connect via the following social sites:

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