Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

I have been holding onto this Savannah Bananas cap for a few years now and am finally featuring it as this week's Fresh Fitted Friday selection as I am finally be attending my first-ever Banana Ball game at Yankee Stadium this coming Sunday!  The all-blue cap might be the main one worn on-field by Savannah, but I love the way the yellow pops on the white crown on this alternate more than any other cap that was available at my time of purchase. It's also worth mentioning that was before they sold a New Era version, which reverses the blue visor and yellow rear from this hat.   Not a crazy fan of the tonal visor and undervisor, but all in all, this is a great cap that I cannot wait to finally wear out in the wild on Sunday at Yankee Stadium. My first-ever cap from Zephyr Headwear just had to be a Savannah Bananas hat, didn't it?!? I have been following along the Bananas' inspiring journey since their inaugural season in the Coastal Plain League in 2016, as they filled the...

Ahead of the Modesto Nuts final homestand, I have finally procured my first ever Nuts cap as I stated that I hoped I would do this year back in my  San Bernardino Spirit post   from December 20, 2024. As I mentioned in that post, Modesto has fielded a team for almost 80 years so closing out the California League's season with this cap seems like a fitting tribute. This logo is not the first one that comes to mind when minor league fans first think of the team but it has made its fair share of appearances over the past 20 years of their existence and it plays a fine straight man to the wild embroidery design of the side patch. I had a hard time trying to decide if I wanted a cap featuring Al Almond or Wally Walnut so thankfully Topperzstoreusa came through in the clutch by featuring both on the embroidery. It is done up in a metallic style that is not easy to read however if you are familiar with the team's designs it's fairly obvious. The embroidery is so massive the hat is...

The big conversation topic in the baseball world this week was spawned by comments made by Commissioner Rob Manfred in an interview during the fourth inning of the 2025 MLB Little League Classic this past Sunday. In that segment he discussed his support for expansion and a geographic realignment which has not happened since the strike-shortened 1994 season . The last time MLB introduced new teams was in 1998 when the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays (now Tampa Bay Rays) joined the National and American Leagues, respectively. The next expansion clubs, however, might not even be part of either "league" in the current sense if the realignment reorganizes each circuit into geographical conferences. The first thing to sort is which cities get teams and I am glad Portland has finally emerged as a frontrunner for one on the West Coast. Their presence brings us closer to my favorite period in baseball history: the heyday of the Pacific Coast League (PCL), which effective...

I might have just written about a Seattle Mariners affiliate just a few weeks ago but I had no choice but to feature yet another link to the M's this time as earlier this week some good friends recently shared photos of the whole family enjoying an Everett AquaSox game and a video of birthday girl throwing out the first pitch that night!  In addition to celebrating my friends' Northwest journey, this post joins that recent Riverside Pilots hat  with last week's San Jose Giants cap  as I' ve  written about the AquaSox before  but also shown love to that city in other posts  as the  Everett Giants  played in the Northwest League from 1984-94. Lastly , the Bellingham Giants ( 1995–1996)  and Bellingham Mariners ( 1977–1994) are another Northwest League link between the Giants and Mariners, respectively. Earlier I mentioned my other AquaSox hat with this being the third and final on-field logo left to feature here. The zaniness of this batting...

This post marks the second week in a row that I have brought out an Ebbets Field Flannels retro but the wool serge fabric and a stiff crown on this retro of the hat logo the San Jose Giants wore for one year only in 1989 is far less common than the wool broadcloth found on the majority of the Ebbets caps. Something this esoteric and awe-inspiring could only have come from ballcap aficionado Paul Carr of The Ballcap Blog who is a native of San Jose and is the force behind the 1986 San Jose Bees retro  that I have wrote about here just a few years ago. I met Paul many years ago and other than our shared love of hats, I was glad to hear we are both really into music as well. We're both into a variety of music and last I checked his favorite band is Green Day who hail from the East Bay. I have been a big fan of theirs since I was a teenager in the mid-1990s but the Bay Area band that I dig the most is the Grateful Dead which I have a sneaking suspicion is not a band that most Green Da...

I am writing this post after just coming home from a Norfolk Tides game where my hometown team turned back the clock to their 1989-92 era for the very first time. It would be an understatement to say I was ecstatic to relive so many fond memories of players like  Tim Bogar, Steve Springer and Kevin Baez who wore the  uniform from my favorite era in Tides history. It's hard to believe 12 years have passed since my 1992 Tidewater Tides post  which accounts for Baez handing me my first ever player-worn onfield cap that is the most prized cap in my collection. My love for that cap was only reignited in 2024 when  @yellowsub73  broke the news that a retro of that cap was coming thanks to  @djmach716  of the New Era store in Buffalo, NY. I've already featured that particular retro so this week's Fresh Fitted Friday selection focuses on the  Memphis Redbirds which was the team the  Tides faced in the turn-back-the-clock game I attended. Since I ha...

While last week's theme focused on David Wright's induction into the Mets Hall of Fame, the ceremony for the National Baseball Hall of Fame takes place this Saturday so this week's hat closes the loop on my  1994 Appleton Foxes retro  from this past January when it was announced that Ichiro Suzuki would be the first Japanese-born player to receive a plaque in Cooperstown.   This "What If?" or "Reimagined" retro of the Riverside Pilots is another banger from the New Era Buffalo flagship store and this colorblocking cleverly inverts the navy and teal placement on the cap the team wore during their brief tenure. Truth be told the crown features a brighter hue than the original teal but it's a fun cap nonetheless. The absence of the MILB batterman is a welcome touch here as the suspension of disbelief needed for this one has us imagining this cap to be from 1993.  As I mentioned in that Foxes post, Ichiro did not have to toil on any MILB teams on his w...

All-Star week is the most boring time of year for major league sports fans, as it’s the only stretch where there is not at least one game played in MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL. As addicted as I am to baseball, I actually don’t mind the break much because at this point of the season, I appreciate not having to set fantasy rosters for a few days! Now that I'm recharged I'm looking forward to my next planned game on Wednesday as the Los Angeles Angels take on the New York Mets for their biennial visit to Queens. The theme for this week’s post is the homestand this upcoming weekend, with Saturday being the number retirement and Mets Hall of Fame induction of former captain David Wright. Mentioning Wright in last week’s post was a foreshadowing of my plan to wear this vintage Wausau Mets hat in honor of “W” being his last initial but alas ticket prices on the secondary market are sky high for that game so I’ll likely be watching from home!  Now that we're firmly in the fine print zone...

I returned from my trip to Colorado just a few days ago feeling recharged after reconnecting with longtime friends and places that are deeply meaningful to me. As I mentioned in the first post of this "Homecoming Series" , Colorado was my college home in between my childhood years in Virginia and the ones when I lived in the Bay Area before I finally came to New York. The third post in this sequence is the last before the All-Star break and it connects three of the four places I have lived thus far as it is the cap worn by David Wright—who like myself, was born in DePaul Hospital in Norfolk, Virginia—when he represented the New York Mets in the 2007 All-Star game which was held in San Francisco. I am glad the Mets chose their black hat for that game because the minimal amount of blue and slight bit of orange pairs beautifully with the side patch.  I've stated many times the 2007 All-Star Game hat is my favorite one ever and if this cap was my size you can be sure I would ...

As mentioned in last week's post, the  "Homecoming Series"  would be at least two parts. And because  July 4 falls on a Friday this year, this week's entry takes us to my home state of Virginia to highlight the "Stars & Stripes" cap the Norfolk Tides wore during games played throughout the Independence Day weekend in 2019 . When the Tides launched their  refreshed logo set designed by Brandiose  following the 2015 season, I immediately picked up the home and road caps but for some reason held off on their alternate featuring a "T" in historic naval lettering. It's kind of a "if you know, you know" sort of thing as that design isn't the most widely recognized logo in minor league baseball but that's ok! The straightforward elegance of the military font is splendidly done up in the colors of Old Glory and the league patch adds even more pop to the overall look of the cap. I am a sucker for a white sweatband and a green und...

Today's Fresh Fitted Friday post is first of at least two in a "Homecoming Series" as I am currently traveling toward my alma mater, the University of Colorado Boulder. While I usually make efforts to attend baseball games during jaunts occuring during the season, my packed schedule leaves limited chances of making it to a Colorado Rockies game this time around. I've come to terms with this actuality since this is really more of a live music journey as I'll be seeing  Phish play three shows at Folsom Field. I suppose there is a sports element to this trip after all because that is where the Buffaloes play their home football games! I  am fairly certain this is my first visit inside the stadium  as I never went to a football game back in my college days and am unsure if I went to any other event at Folsom Field. I did however go to a few men's basketball games back then and while I really would have enjoyed attending some Buffaloes baseball games, their baseba...