Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

I selected the "Tri-Star Plate" alternate worn by the  Nashville Sounds for the  final Fresh Fitted Friday post of 2026 as a nod to my favorite write-up of the year which, was  1978 Nashville Sounds retro cap  in which I discussed the logistics of Nashville being a front-runner in the contention for an MLB expansion team . That post was perhaps my lengthiest one thus far however I felt compelled to carefully detail the steps involved in that effort while this week I am focusing on that potential team's name. If incorporating "Stars" in the moniker is a must, " Tri-Stars" would be a stellar choice as it properly p ays tribute to their iconic state flag although I prefer the way  "Nashville TriStars"  reads. There's a sports memorabilia company called TriStar Productions which could put a kink in my proposal but should there be no copyright issue there, calling themselves the TriStars would certainly avoid any legal entanglements with the...

The big conversation topic in the baseball world this week was spawned by comments made by Commissioner Rob Manfred in an interview during the fourth inning of the 2025 MLB Little League Classic this past Sunday. In that segment he discussed his support for expansion and a geographic realignment which has not happened since the strike-shortened 1994 season . The last time MLB introduced new teams was in 1998 when the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays (now Tampa Bay Rays) joined the National and American Leagues, respectively. The next expansion clubs, however, might not even be part of either "league" in the current sense if the realignment reorganizes each circuit into geographical conferences. The first thing to sort is which cities get teams and I am glad Portland has finally emerged as a frontrunner for one on the West Coast. Their presence brings us closer to my favorite period in baseball history: the heyday of the Pacific Coast League (PCL), which effective...

It seems like just a year or two ago that I wrote about one of the all-time favorites in my collection which is the 1991 Nashville Sounds cap  although in reality that was just over ten years ago. Even more baffling is I've written about four other Sounds caps since then with today's Fresh Fitted Friday selection being the "Music City" variant from the 2015 rebrand. Three of those four caps were from that rebrand with this "Music City" alternate being what will likely be my final entry from that  epic set by Brandiose . I never imagined back in 2015 that a "Made in U.S.A." tag would someday become a thing of the past on New Era caps but I'm still holding onto the hope that the manufacturing of these timeless hats comes back stateside. The hit of red on the MILB batterman over a mostly black cap is fitting for a team from Nashville, which in my mind is a town synonymous with Johnny Cash, aka The Man in Black, who has an entire museum dedicate...

I clung to a faint hope that posting a Buffalo-exclusive from New Era’s flagship in last week's post ahead of the AFC Championship game might bring good luck to the Buffalo Bills against the Kansas City Chiefs.  Unfortunately, my celebratory run of sharing Buffalo-related caps will have to wait for another time. And just like this year’s remaining unsigned MLB free agents who are frustrated with their previous and prospective teams alike, I had to find an alternative route for this week’s post. The main difference between me and players like Pete Alonso or Alex Bregman is that I don’t anticipate receiving a lucrative contract between now and the start of Spring Training. Nevertheless, that mere fact won’t deter me from daydreaming about the sun-soaked games that are about to unfold in Arizona and   Florida in particular as I’ve chosen to focus on the Kissimmee Cobras for this week’s post. In addition to celebrating the “Year of the Snake” during the current Lunar New Yea...

For the second week in a row I'm featuring a Favorites cap from my collection and before you start thinking "every cap is my favorite" I want to mention  the reason for posting this cap the Norfolk Tides wore from 1993-2015 today is because International Surfing Day is held annually on the third Saturday in June which happens to be tomorrow, June 17th. Until the team rebranded in 2016, the "wavy T" logo was the main cap logo worn by the Tides since 1993 which was their inaugural season at Harbor Park. The combination of a new uniform and ballpark undoubtedly ushered in a new  wave  of appreciation for the team. Luckily the "Made in China" tag is hiding underneath the sweatband here! The sky blue on the brim, button and batterman are a nice touch here but if we are being honest, they give off too much of a UNC vibe for my taste. Earlier I mentioned how the "new look" Tides of 1993 reinvigorated the team and I imagine after wearing this cap fo...

The great thing about being a cap collector is that laying eyes on fresh new logos is as exciting as the classics that got you into the hobby which will always resonate with you. That's why after all these years, the logo the  Cedar Rapids Kernels wore on their caps from 1993 - 2006 is as exciting to me now as always. The Cedar Rapids Reds became the Kernels when the Minnesota Twins became their parent club in 1993 and even though the logo doesn't have the cartoonistic Poochie Effect  that other teams began to employ in the mid-1990s, this cornball has a lot going for it. I've written DeLong caps in previous posts however only the ones I've identified as being from 1993 and beyond have featured the loose MILB tag so finding out the exact year it first appeared might need to be my next project. DeLong's calling card is the square brim which provides a slightly different result once these caps are broken in.  I put the "Favorites" label on this post as well ...

Last week's Fowlball post was a lot of fun to write and rising up from the flames of all that fun is another ornithologically tinged cap that also happens to be Arizona-related as well. This Phoenix Firebirds retro cap was part of a 2017 collection produced by Ebbets Field Flannels and sold by Lids. I love the crispness of the white sweatband and grey undervisor here and hope Ebbets' newly kindled partnership with Lids will bring back some of these classic designs from the 1990s. It's difficult to faithfully reproduce logos from the 1990s however Ebbets has a solid hit rate in that regard even though they're better known for their more esoteric releases. I made a plea for Ebbets to retro the Peninsula Pilots cap  and 1983 Portland Beavers in last week's Fowlball post and the quality on this Firebirds cap is what I'd like to see if either or both ever get made. Perhaps Ebbets will fulfill these requests if I keep promoting the other caps from that collection li...

I was recently asked again if I had a favorite minor league cap and once more I was unable to field that seemingly simple question! To think it was only a year ago that I last discussed my struggle coming up with a definitive answer in my post on my  Carolina Pescados (Carolina Mudcats - Copa de la Diversion) cap . The hats mentioned in that post still rank highly up there in my view however I should have given a nod to the Nashville Sounds, especially the musically inspired logos Brandiose designed for the team's rebrand in 2015. This week's Fresh Fitted Friday selection is the Diamond Era cap from that set which I consider to be a true unsung hero of the collection. This cap was a wedding gift from a good friend of mine I met in college who grew up in Nashville and still lives in Music City today. Thanks again, Nate! I love how the soft nylon material on the inside of these caps serves as a guard against summer heat. I can imagine it must have been especially handy on some h...

I struggle whenever someone asks me what cap logo is my "favorite" and yet one would think that being unprepared for the same question enough times would prompt me to correct that but alas, I have not. I suppose I have more fun rattling off the first five caps that come to mind as opposed to working with a scripted answer.  If you ask me point blank right now about my "top 5" of current caps, it would include the Asheville Tourists, Vermont Lake Monsters, Norfolk Tides, Hillsboro Hops and Carolina Mudcats. There are plenty of defunct teams out there with caps that make me shed a tear of nostalgia but I figure if someone's asking about caps they want to hear about ones they could easily buy.  Besides the Hops which is a newer team, the rest of those clubs have rebranded a few times but of those remaining four, the only one that's consistently had the same logo for their entire existence is the Mudcats. So when it was time to create an identity for the Copa de...

The Pacific Coast League theme continues this week as another Tennessee team worth a look is the Nashville Sounds. Sadly, their road cap has just hit the road itself after the 2018 season as  the Sounds rebranded once again leading up to the beginning of their affiliation with the Texas Rangers the following season. I'm not sure  why the Sounds would abandon such an amazing logo, especially after such a brief time. It's also hard to believe that it's been a little over three years since  the home cap was featured on the site ! Unfortunately this is a "Made in China" cap and it definitely feels stiffer and boxier than other caps. It also feels like it's a size or two bigger than 7 3/8 but I suppose that's the risk you take buying New Era caps nowadays. Another thing that's hard to say goodbye to is the "Bred" (black and red) MILB batterman as the newest Sounds caps are dark navy, which I find to be interesting because they certainl...