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Showing posts with the label 1990's

Early 1990's Yakima Bears

Welcome back to another week under quarantine, folks! This post takes our talents on a road trip out west so that we can discover all the rugged beauty that it has to offer. To mark this special occasion, I've got a Yakima Bears snapback from the early 1990's that I believe to be one of the more rare caps that the team wore during its existence. The simplicity of the Yakima "Y" in the cap logo provides a sense of timelessness and even though the team is now-defunct, the design should be revived by the next team that makes its home in Yakima. Besides the copious amount of schmutz on the sweatband, the tags here tell a very short story as to what year this cap was worn as these two specific tags are prevalent on many of the early 1990's snapbacks that I've seen before. The missing MILB batterman embroidery is suggests to me that this cap is most likely from the early 1990's. I have found no evidence of the team wearing this yellow crowned cap in

Pro-Line Chattanooga Lookouts - Fresh Fitted Friday!!!!

Ok, that's it. I don't have any more Southern League teams to write about (for now) and that's probably a good thing because I'm feeling some mild accomplishment that with this week's Chattanooga Lookouts cap, I have now written about eight of the ten teams in the league! From 1988 through 2008, the Cincinnati Reds had their Double-A affiliate in Chattanooga and after a ten year absence is back in Nooga as of the 2019 season. Once thing about Lookouts fans is they have to be good spellers as there are some real some doozies: Chattanooga, Cincinnati, Tennessee. Thank godnes for spelcheck. I haven't featured a Pro-Line cap here for a while so it's good to have one again for this week's post. Unfortunately, sweatband tags for this producer did not vary much throughout the 1990's so it's next to impossible for me to determine which year this cap is from. Ah, the parent team embroidered on the back of the cap. I remember thinking that wa

1993-99 Cedar Rapids Kernels

Wella-wella-wella welcome back, y'all! Last week was way too busy for me to turn in a quality post but we are keeping the spirit of the Midwest League theme going this week with a classic cap from another Iowa-based franchise: the Cedar Rapids Kernels. I've written about the current version of the Kernels cap but in truth, that one has never been my favorite. Virtually every sports team has a logo that I feel is their greatest and to me, this week's cap is the classiest and most elegant logo the Kernels have ever worn. Firstly, a baseball gently emerging from a corn husk is about as Midwest as it gets, folks. Corn's importance in the region is boundless but what I appreciate most about the imagery is it represents new life as every spring, a new season of baseball begins in Cedar Rapids. I've never been to Iowa but teams like the Kernels, Clinton LumberKings and Quad Cities River Bandits have piqued my interest since an early age. The movie F

1992-95 Prince William Cannons Cap

I've probably mentioned this more than a few times already but my life-long love for baseball truly is something that's shaped the person I am today. F lipping through baseball cards as a child helped developed my knack for matching names with faces while poring over stats on the backs of those cards led to my o bsession with analyzing data.  As far as the subject matter in this blog, my appreciation for visual aesthetics in design is rooted in hours spent staring at logos on caps and uniforms of ballplayers while organizing my cards and watching games on television. My penchant for nostalgia is so blatant, it should't surprise you that my first hats are ones that resonate the deepest with me. My first MLB caps were the caps worn by the Chicago White Sox and Florida Marlins in the early 1990's and my first MILB caps were the New Haven Ravens, Greensboro Hornets and Prince William Cannons. Because the current theme here is the Carolina League, I've got not one, b

Early 1990's Durham Bulls

Disclaimer: So I said last week that the International League celebration would be coming to an end then and while you think I'm breaking my word for today's Fresh Fitted Friday  selection, I'm actually well within the rules because this Durham Bulls cap dates back to when  they were members of the Single-A Carolina League. The first year the Bulls wore this logo on their cap was in 1988 but I have a feeling that the paper tags that came attached to New Era caps didn't begin to appear until sometime in the early 1990's. If anyone has any proof otherwise, I'm all ears however a nother reason I presume this one to be from then is because of the tags on the sweatband. My apologies for the crummy quality of these photos but would you believe that they're from 2011? If you're ever been in awe about how old some of these caps are, just remember that some of the photos of these old caps are almost 10 years old themselves! Now, I must

1992-93 Carolina Mudcats

Has it really been almost four months since my last post? Of course that’s a rhetorical question but I still want to explain why I lapsed for so long. The quick answer is I’ve been preoccupied with other activities over the past few months however at some point during that time I should have posted a quick blurb about the hiatus but I kept getting distracted. I also lost interest in all things baseball as I saw my San Francisco Giants play terribly once again this year and now that the regular season has come to a close, I’ve decided to hate-watch the NLCS. For the second year in a row, the Los Angeles Dodgers are clear favorites to win the pennant but I’m going to be rooting for the Milwaukee Brewers in the series. This petty tactic is the reason why this week’s Fresh Fitted Friday selection is a Carolina Mudcats cap as they are the Class A affiliate of the Brewers in the Carolina League. How fortuitous that I just happened to have the tags still on this cap that's ov

Syracuse Chiefs - Fresh Fitted Friday!!!

For the third week in a row, I've had the perfect hat to wear to a game and ended up not going however that's not going to stop me from sharing some photos of it. I picked this Syracuse Chiefs hat to wear to the Washington Nationals series at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday but I chose to go see Robert Plant at Forrest Hills Stadium instead. The Chiefs wore this cap logo from 1989 through 1996. It's a challenge to ascertain what year this cap is from as it's a DeLong and not New Era, which usually give hints when looking at the sweatband tags. Disclaimer: I've worn this hat around more than a few times already so it's not as Fresh of a Fresh Fitted Friday as previous weeks. Sorry about that! This hat would have been a perfect troll on the Nationals as their player development contract runs out at the end of this year and the Mets are going to be setting up shop there in 2019. It's not known where Washington's Triple-A affiliate will b

1994-96 Brevard County Manatees - Fresh Fitted Friday!!!

We're wrapping up the second week of MLB's 2018 season however I'm showing no signs of slowing down with the inventory of minor league caps from Florida teams. This week's cap is a Florida State League classic: a Brevard County Manatees cap from 1994-96. From what I've seen, this version of the cap with a teal brim is less common than the all black. For what it's worth, I've only seen it on cards from 1994. Usual suspects as far as sweatband tags from 1994 to 1996 are concerned.  The black and teal batterman here makes me think of pure waters where Manatees may float and snack as they please. Graze on. I've mentioned this before but it's worth repeating that the peak level of my interest in minor league baseball came in the mid-1990's so it's no surprise that when the Portland Sea Dogs and the Brevard County Manatees showed up in 1994 with black and teal caps, I was sold on these teams immediately. The Manatees and Sea Do

1990-91 Orlando SunRays hat - Fresh Fitted Friday!!!!

Now that MLB's 2018 regular season is underway, I'm back to dedicating a full seven days a week thinking about baseball as opposed to the one day a week when I posted to this blog. My appreciation for Florida minor league baseball continues this week with a hat I've been seeking out for quite a while: a 1990-91 Orlando Sun Rays hat.   The wordmark logo reads "Orlando Rays" however the team's official moniker was "Sun Rays" or "SunRays" depending on whom you ask. They wore this logo the first two years of their existence and switched to this cap logo for their final two seasons. Featuring an AJD cap two weeks in a row is definitely a record for this blog as I'm typically an unabashed New Era purist. Last week's 1992 AJD Fort Myers Miracle hat didn't have an MILB batterman so there's no way this one would but here's a photo just to be sure Their name changed to  the Orlando Cubs upon their affil