Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

As this blog approaches its 14th anniversary, I cannot help but be amazed that I have been writing about baseball hats almost half as long as I have been regularly wearing them! It is hard to believe that even the caps that were brand new when I first started writing are now as old as I was when I first started collecting. Those older caps in my collection are too small and ragged to wear but I can never part with them as they represent such a big part of my past. Speaking of nostalgia and such, I recognize that I lean extra heavy into such themes in my  Fresh Fitted Friday posts ahead of Father's Day when writing about San Diego Padres "Taco Bell" designs  which has become a  quasi-tradition. Like the 1978  Reno Silver Sox retro I featured for last year's Father's Day post,  hat blog legend Paul Carr  tirelessly worked with Ebbets Field Flannels to release this 1983 Reno Padres reproduction which I chose for this year's post for the holiday.  A...

When I began posting about my caps back in August 2011, there were only a few sites out there dedicated to the hobby of collecting but two posts that I was thrilled to come upon in those early days were  Paul Carr's   The Chronology of New Era Cap Tags: A Guide and The San Diego Padres "Taco Bell" Caps . Over the years, Paul has since added more  brilliant blog  entries  in his  "Taco Bell"   series and even worked with Ebbets Field Flannels to create a retro of the 1978 Reno Silver Sox cap which was the focus of his  Minoring in Taco Bell  post. Also in that time, I as well have endeared myself to this wacky style enough to  run for the border to join in the "Taco Bell" fun when possible! I chose  the Reno Silver Sox retro to be  this week's  Fresh Fitted Friday  selection   to continue in that paternal theme  that I started in my only  previous "Father's Day" post which as it happens was for a ...

This week's Fresh Fitted Friday selection is a 1978 Tacoma Yankees retro that continues the "Washington" theme of last week's Presidents Day post because, well Tacoma is in State of Washington state.  I picked this hat because today is February 24 and fans of the show Twin Peaks widely recognize this date to be the one where Agent Cooper came to the fictional town in Washington to investigate the death of Laura Palmer. The lettering here is a little more rigid than I would expect to see on a Yankees-affiliated hat but I still prefer the resemblance of Kanji characters on this hat over the disjointed look of the old Tampa Yankees cap logo . I love that there was no requirement for this cap to feature a batterman or New Era flag but most of all I'm glad to have purchased from Hat Club in June 2018, well before New Era closed its last US-based factory in Derby, NY.  I also like how extra on the Kelly this cap goes. It's perfect for St. Patrick's Day which I...