Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

I considered jumping back in to Pacific Coast League caps for this week's missive but last week's Australia/birthday post got me thinking that the early part of the year is the perfect time to jump into a new theme. And what better way to celebrate a new theme than by showcasing the cap of a brand new team for 2020? By my count this Norwich Sea Unicorns cap is the 19th unique Brandiose design that I've featured here but this one is extra special for a few reasons, the first being that my wife just gifted this to me for my birthday. The second big draw to this hat is that I have a keen appreciation of nautical themes, especially unicorns and goes double for narwhals! To be honest, I wish the team rebranded as the Norwich Narwals but alliteration be damned I suppose. In all fairness, I'm just happy that a Class Short Season team ponied up the money for a much-needed makeover. I haven't seen too many of the "Made in Bangladesh" caps so I'm hop

Welcome to the last post of the 2019  New York-Penn League  celebration! I began the series with the primary cap worn by the Staten Island Yankees when they suit up as the "Pizza Rats" so I'm bookending it with the "NYC" cap.  Both of the "Pizza Rats" logos are fantastic but the "NYC" is quintessentially New York as the design is a callback to the bygone subway tokens of the past. The "Y" as a slice of pizza with a bite taken out of the crust—presumably by a rat—is an incredible touch. I was hoping to catch a  "Pizza Rats" theme night this year but sadly, that did not happen. Rats!  The one game I saw this season was this past Wednesday night as the team  played under its usual moniker and this week's cap is the one I wore to the game. I consider myself to be very fortunate to have procured a "Made in U.S.A" cap last season. My  Baby Bombers experience  this week reinforced my prefere

The second half of the 2019 MLB season is under way and I've decided I need to start going to some more games before the season's end.  I started this year off strong but the only time I got to the ballpark last month was on June 4th when the Giants tallied up six runs in the top of the 10th inning  against the Mets at CitiField.  I left after the top of the 9th because I was certain the Mets would walk it off—which they did not—and I'm glad I was wrong!  My most recent attempt to get to a game was for the  Rays-Yankees matchup this past Wednesday, which I learned was postponed due to "severe inclement weather" as I was riding the  subway up to the Bronx.  Maybe this most recent misadventure is a sign that I need to switch it up a little. I'm thinking I should catch some Staten Island Yankees games where I can proudly sport this week's Fresh Fitted Friday selection, which I believe is the primary cap the team will be wearing on their  Pizza Rats-them

I've had a lot of fun over the past two months writing about classic International League teams and the different caps that teams have worn over the years but I think this week's Lehigh Valley IronPigs "Fighting Bacon" cap will be the 8th and final cap of this run. Just like many of the cap logo designs that Brandiose produces, this Bacon is a surly character who's ready to rumble as his anger is sizzling hot. Like the  "Bacon and Eggs"/"Eggs and Bacon" cap  that I wrote about on December 28, 2018, the origin of this cap's logo comes from another Food Fight type of series. This time the IronPigs took on the identity of Bacon while the Fresno Grizzlies of the Pacific Coast League were the Tacos.  While the IronPigs once again turned to the brain geniuses of Brandiose for their design, Fresno used an in-house design team of artists named Dorian Castro and Andy Inman. I like the Bacon logo more but if I also really dig Fresno&

As much as I want to start this new year off with a fresh start for Fresh Fitted Friday, I just can't help wanting to do a continuation of last week's theme so I decided this week's hat needs to be the Lehigh Valley IronPigs home cap. Brandiose designed this cap which the IronPigs have worn for most of their home games since their  inaugural season in 2008 . I love the 3D embroidery on the crown and that the fierce looking pig has become a touchstone in terms of design elements for Brandiose.  Because the logo and sweatband tags haven't varied much in the time since this cap first came out, it's almost impossible to decipher which year this cap was purchased although it was Made In U.S.A so it's likely not that recent. I appreciate you coming to the site to read about this now-iconic cap logo and I hope you return next week as I have another fun cap from the IronPigs cap artillery that I'm looking forward to sharing with you.  Ev

We're only a few days away from Halloween so it's a must that this week's Fresh Fitted has an All Hallow's theme. There are some teams with scarier and/or spookier logos out there (eg. Lake Elsinore Storm , Orem Owls  and Ogden Raptors ) but the fact that the "Casper Ghosts" team name has expired, this cap seems even more haunted than ever. To prove my point about the ghoulish nature of this cap, look no further than the way in which the Casper Rockies decided to unveil their rebranded look  on Halloween back in 2007. Brandiose was at the helm of the creation of the new identity and its success with this effort solidified their reputation as a top-tier design firm in the world of sports logos. This cap logo glows in the dark but my camera is simply not powerful enough to capture this awesomeness. Luckily Chris Creamer's Sportslogos site is way better blog than mine and has no issues getting the job done. While the Casper Ghosts ceased to ex

01/20/2022 update: I fixed the broken image links and some text in the paragraphs below which were a complete mess. Rest assured, I left the overall content and tone consistent with the time in which this post was first published Like John "Hannibal" Smith, I love it when a plan comes together and what I don't love is when a plan falls apart. I intended to a story and some photos of a fresh and new fitted last Friday but my plan was beset by sweltering heat at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. Even though my plan was temporarily halted, I consider myself to be resilient so I'm going to show those photos today. With no further ado, I present to you this week's Fresh Fitted Friday selection which is the cap worn by the team of Virginia's state capital, the Richmond Flying Squirrels.  The Flying Squirrels identity was one of the agency's earliest creations when it was known as Plan B Branding and I appreciate that the outline silhou

During the December 4, 2015 write-up of my Vermont Lake Monsters vintage cap, I discussed the wide-range of fan reactions regarding the newly redesigned Norfolk Tides cap logo. Naturally, the old guard was hesitant to swap out the beloved wave-topped T logo that the Tides have employed since 1993 in favor of the trident-wielding seahorse created by Brandiose which for the unfamiliar is a design firm based in San Diego. It turns out that the fans ended up appreciating Brandiose's efforts to the point that the Tides cannot keep the caps in supply enough to match the demand. I've followed Brandiose's output over the past few years and I'm thrilled with this collaboration with the Tides and that my hometown team now has a much-needed fresh new look. If you are browsing this page on a desktop machine, check out the social links on the right and if you are on a mobile device, click these links below: Instagram:  @baseballmilquetoast Twitter:  @FittedFriday F

This cap features a fun logo from the guys at Brandiose. I always dig their work. This scombrid is a mighty surly one indeed. Notice how the Wahoo is gripping a bat with some mysterious phantom phalanges. I just trademarked "Phantom Phalanges" as a band name, btw. Nothing crazy about these sweatband tags but maybe one day they will seem crazy! That is an MILB batterman logo in Pink, White and Blue. I love it. If you have been keeping up with the blog over the past few weeks, you might have noticed the focus on caps from teams that play in Major League Baseball's spring training states. I've said this many times before, but the most hopeful time of the year for a baseball fan is when spring training reaches its final weeks as it is now. Being a fan of the San Francisco Giants, it pains me to see my team floundering in the spring instead of deftly defending the championship that they won last November. As of publishing time, the Giant