Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

It has been over five years since my  1980-92 Reading Phillies snapback  post so I am extra excited bout this this week's  Fresh Fitted Friday  which is a special one because I am finally able to feature a fitted version of the cap. This cap is one of the many stunning MILB releases by the one and only  @djmach716  from New Era shop in Buffalo, NY. Back in August I featured the  "New Era Buffalo Exclusive" Vermont Expos  which was also obtained from the flagship via an assist from my friend  @yellowsub73 . I was hesitant to name which other caps I wanted to scoop up from the store however this week's Reading Phillies hat marks the first revelation of that set and soon enough I will be sharing more from my recent haul. This is about as close as you can get to the 1980s Reading Phillies logo and I am fairly certain we won't see a retro this good ever again. My fear is based on releases in the recent past where the bigger stores have messed up the font on elegant log

I'm back on the nostalgia tip with this week's Fresh Fitted Friday selection which is a Mitchell & Ness retro of the cap the San Diego Padres wore in the early 1980s. That was a great time in my childhood for many reasons but mostly because my baby sister had just recently been born. Plus, I was also just starting to develop interests…such as baseball!  The Padres have recently recommitted to the brown and yellow colorway full-time for their current uniforms and even though I'm certain New Era won't be able to get the logo right, I'd love to see the "Taco Bell" caps make an appearance at some point. My first ever Mitchell & Ness post happened with my Pre-1974 Buffalo Bills - Mitchell & Ness Retro post earlier this year but this is my first write-up for a baseball cap made by the legendary company Am I crazy for wanting to maybe slap on a patch of a smiling mouth so that it looks like the back of the cap is giving you a weird look when you'

The first thought that popped into my head as I sat down to write this week's post was, "Wow, am I really going to not write about a minor league cap for the third post in a row? If so, when was the last time I went back-to-back-to-back with MLB caps on this blog?" I realize that question might not be of any real interest to anyone other than me (and perhaps a few other nerds) but just in case you are wondering what the answer is, I should probably just tell you now so that you won't leave this page to search through the archives. Three years. Yeah, it's been exactly that long since I've tripled up on MLB caps here. Under normal circumstances, three years is not an extraordinarily long amount of time but if  February 2020 feels like it was many, many years ago then 2017   truly does seem like a time long passed  if you consider all of the insane world events since then. I was reminded on my quest to find the answer to that query that it was my 2007 All-

The South Atlantic League celebraish officially "goes to 11" today and I think I'll be wrapping up the series next week as I'm sure everyone is about ready for a new topic. Until then, let's talk about this sweet 1980s Asheville Tourists cap which is all about simplicity —while perhaps even teetering on the edge of basic—  although is a classic nonetheless. A cursory glance of Tourists cards from 1986 and 1987 shows players wearing hats with this week's logo and on a royal blue crown, albeit with a grey underbrim, unlike this week's cap. The navy crown seen on  this  1989-93 Asheville Tourists hat  I wrote about just a little over two years ago proves this cap is from no later than  1988. I had troubling finding Asheville Tourists baseball cards from 1981 through 1985 so I can't say with certainty  the earliest year this cap could be from . The closest thing I could find is this image of former Houston Astros pitcher Charlie Ke

08/27/2023 Update : I'm rather embarrassed that it has taken me this long to update this post with disclaimer that I don't actually own this cap. I've only written about a handful of hats that I don't actually own but at times I feel doing so is necessary as it helps collectors come up with accurage years in which caps were produced. To keep things more organized, I've added a "Disclaimer" logo to this post as well as others in which it would also be applicable. This Fresh Fitted Friday post is for a cap Every once in a while a beauty comes around that is easy to appreciate even though you don't know exactly what it is. Such is the case with this vintage cap that I (have led myself to) believe is a Reading Phillies cap from the 1980s. A little background: other than the Lakeland Tigers of the Florida State League, no other minor league team has consistently held a player development program with the same major league team as long as the Readi

What's good today? How about a fitted so vintage that it dares to consider itself fresh ? Well, this week's edition of Fresh Fitted Friday goes out to a man who is known to have brought some serious heat in his day: Rollie Fingers! Before going any further, I would guess that most people in the fitted hat game, when hearing the name "Rollie Fingers" think of this guy: I wouldn't fault you for immediately thinking of Inspectah Deck as he's known to have used this alias on multiple occasions. For me, the most fun part of listening to Inspectah Deck -and Wu-Tang Clan in general- is that they drop some of the best pop-culture references in all of hip-hop. Just do a web search for any of the topics they rap about and you've got some interesting research ahead of you! On Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) , Method Man describes Inspectah Deck as having the uncanny ability to judge the character of others: " Inspectah Deck, he's like that dude that

The Albuquerque Dukes and Denver Zephyrs are two former Minor League Baseball teams that you probably don't remember unless they played in your hometown or you are a die-hard fan of the Dodgers or Brewers, respectively. Then again, that seemingly obscure nature of these clubs is what is so great about MILB teams in the first place. They provide endless entertainment to appreciative fans who might otherwise never see an MLB game in person. The Dukes and Zephyrs were two teams that I remembered because their prospects would go on to play in the MLB and I can remember my MILB cards featuring Pedro Martinez wearing a Dukes ballcap very similar to the one I have pictured here. I'll post an image of that card as a reference because it's difficult to imagine Pedro wearing anything but a Red Sox cap! However, it's no secret I'm no fan of the Red Sox or the Dodgers so this Dukes cap isn't something that I'll wear to a ballgame or anywhere for that matter, so I'