Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

In last week's post I stated this week would be "somewhat related" to Spring Training with the inspiration being I am attending a f amily event in Phoenix this weekend although I hope you're not disappointed in it not being a proper Cactus League type cap because my intention from the outset was to feature this "reimagined" Phoenix Firebirds custom colorway from Hat Club! I decided a while ago the Phoenix Firebirds logo has a firm place among my favorites and this orange-drenched variant from Hat Club shoots that ranking way up high in the stratosphere for a San Francisco Giants fan like myself.  I should mention I've had this cap since 2018 which I know because not only do I have my order receipt for it, but looking back at the metadata of these photos I can see they were taken with the phone I owned at that time! As a San Francisco Giants fan, I love an orange and black MILB batterman and I want to express again how thankful I am for Hat Club releasin...

After a few restful weeks offline I am happy to be fully back in the swing of things here with my first Fresh Fitted Friday selection of 2026 being a Buffalo Bisons cap done up in a "Buffalo Sabres" exclusive colorway from Hat Club. If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen my National Hat Day post yesterday in which I celebrated New Era's flagship MILB team with a photo of my 2003 Buffalo Bisons snapback which features the logo they wore from 1998-2003. I should note though the flying baseball which is present on this week's cap was added to the design the following season. I love how Hat Club tied in the Sabres colorway however it would also be neat to see a Buffalo Braves inspired release on this logo too! If you're interested in the lore of the former Buffalo-based basketball team that was once part of the ABA, I recommend checking out the excellent fan site  BuffaloBraves.Net I have stated many times that I am not really a "patch guy" but...

The long wait for baseball's return is over! The 2025 MLB regular season has begun for every team except for the Colorado Rockies and Tampa Bay Rays, who face off today at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa. I have written enough about the Rays lately, so I'd like to focus on my favorite team, the San Francisco Giants, who won their first game of the season today! Celebrating my team on the first post of each season should be a tradition I follow going forward because it sets the tone for things to come. Thankfully, I have no shortage of Giants hats to write about! And instead of flaunting one of their recent World Series on-field caps, I selected one with the iconic wordmark that debuted in 1983 which was actually a bleak point in Giants history. When I see this logo I envision it as a chest back or large patch on a very specific satin Starter jacket which I think a kid on my school bus had in 1987. Thinking back on it, he might have been the first Giants fan I ever met an...

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...

The news of the recent fires in Southern California over the past few days has rattled my brain and left my heart heavy, thinking of everyone who has experienced great loss as well as those who have not yet faced the wrath of this event. I thought about featuring a hat related to Los Angeles; however, all I have are ones from teams playing further inland and south. Because of this, I decided to follow through on my original plan for this week, which was to commemorate Save the Eagles Day, a national holiday established in 2015, which is celebrated today to spread awareness about eagles and advocate for their conservation. There is a correlation between the eagle featured in this 1990-94 Winston-Salem Spirits cap logo and the quote from the iconic film, The Big Lebowski, which takes place in L.A.: "I hate the f&ck!ng Eagles, man!" However, in the case of this hat, we actually love the eagles, man!  This design is permanently etched into my memories as I had a fair amount o...

I took a break from writing last week as I was simply too invested in the ALCS and NLCS to even formulate a coherent sentence and besides that I did not have an interesting hat to write about! But now that the Mets have been eliminated by the Dodgers, now is as good a time as any to showcase a fun hat to honor an otherwise outstanding year for The Kings of Queens. I mentioned Rosh Hashanah in my Eugene Emeralds post so those who celebrate can hopefully appreciate the of symbols of hope for  health, prosperity and general sweetness in the new year that apples represent.  Grey undervisor brings the retro vibes which a perfect match to the classically Amazin' royal blue and orange elements in the cap's design This is such a clean cap overall, I think I will be wearing this cap around town frequently.  After the Yankees punched their ticket to the World Series with their  ALCS  Game 5 win over Cleveland this past Saturday night, I became a ball of nervous energy as ...

As we enter the penultimate weekend of the 2024 Major League Baseball season, the Milwaukee Brewers are the only team that has clinched its division which means the excitement will only ramp up as the other division and wild card results unfold. And as a beer lover, I appreciate the opportune timing of the start of  Oktoberfest just after the  Brewers clinching   so I selected their cap from Hat Club's "Cereal Pack" for this week's post. Each hat in the "Cereal Pack" release offers a nod to an iconic cereal box design which in this case is Frosted Mini-Wheats. Of course, wheat is an integral part of beer which makes it no surprise why this version of the Brewers logo was chosen here.   Compared to the younger generation of cap collectors out there I am admittedly a curmudgeon as the seemingly haphazard patches on these exclusive "drops" don't get me too chuffed however they break up the monotony as well as make it easier to locate caps if you h...

The past two write-ups have been notably more verbose than usual around here so  I hope this 4th of July weekend brings a sort of return to form as we celebrate the tailgating and cookout aspect of the holiday with a Milwaukee Brewers City Connect "Grill" cap for this week's Fresh Fitted Friday post. This is a Hat Club exclusive which varies from the on-field version the Brew Crew wears during its City Connect games. In terms of aesthetics, I actually prefer how the baseball-stitched grill design from the right sleeve patch of the team's j ersey is the primary focus on this hat. Hat Club also released a non-rail version of this cap which flips the placement of the cooler and grill designs. Even though the "Brewed in Milwaukee" is not as easy to read here, I chose this one because the baseball grill logo needed to be front and center. Clean flat batterman logo on a powder blue crown is one of the most ultimate retro 1980s ways to go which means I am in full...

There is no MLB-wide holiday to commemorate this week so for this Fresh Fitted Friday post I have decided to highlight what would have been the 66th birthday of legendary musician, Prince Rogers Nelson (aka Prince) with Hat Club's  "Grape Jelly" colorway of a  Minnesota Twins cap which features a Target Field 10th anniversary patch. As someone who grew up in the 1980s, Prince's songs figure largely in the soundtrack of my youth however a genuine appreciation of his music would only truly occur as I grew older and it continues to grow to this day. While his mastery as a recording artist is beyond compare, I think there should be more discussion around how strong he was as a performer as well. I regret never having seen him in concert however I am fortunate in that there are lots of videos out there that document his showmanship. And even though this is a baseball blog, I want to shout out  Prince's performance at Super Bowl XLI Halftime Show in 2007  which I high...

Throughout this blog's history, my pettiness as a San Francisco Giants fan has led me to systematically avoiding write-ups of caps worn by my team's rivals. While there have been less than a handful of Los Angeles Dodgers posts over the years, this week’s post is my first time ever featuring an Oakland Athletics cap as a Fresh Fitted Friday selection. In my defense, the previously featured Dodgers caps were (objectively speaking) absolute bangers that I mostly posted in hopes of finding a trade partner. And today my justification for breaking the A’s streak is January 12 being “Kiss a Ginger Day” which left me choice but to pay tribute to Mark McGwire who is indisputably the All-Time Mack Daddy of Baseball Gingers. Owning an item commemorating 1989’s “Battle of the Bay” is obviously not something I would ever own personally but that did not stop me from scooping up this beauty as a gift to a friend who is an A’s fan. The 1989 World Series patch brings about some mixed emotion...

We are two weeks into Hispanic Heritage Month and calling back to last year's Los Murciélagos de Louisville  post is this week's Abejas de Salt Lake cap, which is another stunning logo created for the Copa de la Diversión campaign which itself is an expansion of the Es Divertido Ser Un Fan ("It's Fun to Be a Fan") fan engagement program that began in 2017. This logo is one of the more understated Copa designs but the clean lines and bright colors—featuring just the right amount of Tealism , by the way—caught my eye instantly and I especially  appreciate how they implement the bee stripes into the "A" here.   The grey undervisor is a special treat due to this cap being a Hat Club exclusive that I purchased in March 2020. Obviously the entire MILB season was canceled that year but even it had not, the team would not have worn this cap as this was a fan only release.  I love how relaxed the Miami Nights/San Antonio Spurs vibe is on this batterman. All of a ...