Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

Before we get back to our regularly scheduled programming, I want to thank anyone who took the time to consider the views I shared last week. I really do love the baseball hat community but sometimes folks get carried away when it comes to "maintaining tradition" but this week's New Haven Ravens cap is a safe Eastern League icon you're sure to love. This cap logo is the one the Ravens wore from 1994 through 2000 and I prefer this version because it's the first one I ever knew and besides that, the other logo was only used from 2001 through 2003, which was their final year in New Haven. I'm usually firm in my belief that the New Era flag began to appear in 1999 but the Colorado Rockies logo embroidered on the wearer's right side throws that notion off since 1998 was the last year of the Rockies affiliation with the Ravens. The most recently made hat that I own which features the white satin taping is a 1999 Capital City Bomber

The Double-A party continues this week folks and we're not just taking a look at any old Eastern League team this time around. This week's Fresh Fitted is an alternate worn by the Hartford Yard Goats, which as it turns out is a natural rival to last week's featured team, the New Hampshire Fisher Cats.  Like last week's cap, this was another gift from my wife. The "Horned H" logo first caught her eye because it represents our last initial but when she learned the cap was one worn by the team in Hartford, that sealed the deal as we had recently visited The Insurance Capital of the World . Unfortunately, this cap cannot proudly boast the Made In USA tag but I haven't found any glaring quality issues with it thus far. The green, white and blue MILB batterman is a fitting tribute to the iconic colorway once used by the now-defunct Hartford Whalers. The team's rebrand by Brandiose in 2015 brought the design firm's calling card  - w

Last week's Birmingham Barons post might have gotten me really hype on Double-A caps so I sense more of those coming over the next few weeks. Because today is my birthday, I decided to give myself a little shout-out by featuring a cap with my initials (NH) and what's even cooler about this New Hampshire Fisher Cats hat is that it's one my wife gifted to me. This is the primary (I'm so sorry; I couldn't help myself) cap worn by the Fisher Cats and while its logo is not as flashy as some of the other minor league caps out there, I like that the line through the H is the fisher's tail. Also, this is an article about the fisher. The standard current-day New Era taping and tags are found on this cap. Unlikely that this set of tags will change anytime soon, but hey you never know! I like that democracy was utilized in choosing the team's name but I'm hoping that for one game they do a "What If?" night and go by the New Hampshire For

Welcome to the second installment of Maryland-fest, hon! Last week's Hagerstown Suns hat shone brightly but week's iteration of the cap is super-rare as it is the one  worn when the team served as Baltimore's Double-A farm in the Eastern League from 1989 to 1992. Cursive script fonts have never been the go-to choice for cap logos but this is my favorite Hagerstown Suns logo because it was so short-lived and it reminds me of my days as a youngster collecting autographs. The classic MILB hat combination: a single New Era sweatband tag and a green underbrim. Perfection.  Some might say snapbacks don't have a place on Fresh Fitted Friday but remember not many Double-A teams wore fitted caps back in the day.  According to Baseball Reference, about half of the 1988 Single-A Suns played on the Double-A team for at least part of the 1989 season so while it might not have seemed like a big promotion at the time, I imagine the fans in Hagerstown all felt like

Well folks, my baseball morale right now is the lowest it's been all season. The Los Angeles Dodgers, who continued their winning trajectory by sweeping the Arizona Diamondbacks in the ALDS earlier in the week, are now set to face the Chicago Cubs in the NLCS for the second year in a row and I'm not feeling optimistic about this match-up. I was actually hoping the Washington Nationals would be the team to beat the The Doyers in the NLCS (and because I have no caps from any Cubs minor league affiliates) I am featuring this vintage cap from the Harrisburg Senators, who have been the Nats' Double-A affiliate since the team relocated from Montreal in 2005. The Senators sported this logo from 1996 through 2005 and I'm not blind to the irony of the Senators  ditching the Yankee Doodle Dandy fellow in their logo  as soon as their parent team in Canada moved to the capital of the United States. This combination of satin taping and sweatband tags are co

This week's selection from The Great eBay Haul features not only another defunct Connecticut minor league team but it also follows the theme of caps that are too dang small for my noggin. I still had to at least try on this size 7 1/8 New Haven Ravens cap for nostalgia sake as one of my first MILB caps as a youngster was a Ravens hat. It might have actually been the same size as this one! Before they ever played a game,  I probably bought (aka my mom bought) that Ravens cap  assuming they were a Marlins affiliate (rather than Rockies) because of the black and teal colorway. I  don't know if I've told you this before but my Bar Mitzvah colors were teal and purple because like most people in the early 1990's, I had an acute case of Tealism. This cap's crown has a New Era flag so the earliest it can be from is 1999 and because the Ravens made some minor adjustments to their cap logo in 2001, this one is either from 1999 or 2000. The satin taping and

For this week's Fresh Fitted Friday selection from The Great eBay Haul, I decided to continue riffing on the reptile theme from last week's Wisconsin Timber Rattlers post with this Norwich Navigators cap from 1998. Get it? Navi-GATORS?!?! HAHAHAHA The Albany-Colonie Yankees of the Eastern League moved to Norwich, CT in 1995 and their rebrand as the Navigators lasted until the 2006 season when they became the Connecticut Defenders. In 2010, the team moved to Virginia and ever since have been known as the  Richmond Flying Squirrels which was a rebrand helmed by Brandiose. The logos and sweatband tags are spot on with other caps that are tagged here as 1998 but as we saw with last week's Timber Rattlers cap, the lack of a New Era flag is not always a dead giveaway that a cap is from before 1999. Just like with last week's cap, I've seen lots of 1999 baseball cards where players wore Navigators caps without the flag.  One last item of note th

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

Hey folks, wouldn’t you know, it’s time for the 2015 Back-to-School edition of Fresh Fitted Friday! Hopefully y'all had a great summer; I know it has been a fun one for me but one downside is I haven’t posted in far too long. Well all that changes today as I’ve got a new (to me) snapback that I’m excited to welcome to the family: a New Britain Rock Cats cap from the early 2000’s. Look at that Cattitude! The "N" and "B" are for New Britain but kitty has no problem covering them up! If i had to put a firm year on it I’d say it’s from 2003 based on the inside tags, which are identical to those found on this 2003 Buffalo Bisons Cap . Same inside-of-the-cap tags action as other minor league caps from 2003. This Minor League Baseball tag seems to be unique to this cap, though I have never attempted to  hide my distaste for teams that utilize fictitious animals however, this cap has something different about it. Maybe I'll feel ok wearin