Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

Last week’s spotlight on the New York Yankees World Series cap from 1998 got me pumped to do another sort of “Flashback Friday” this time around. I decided to fast-forward ten years to the special edition on-field cap the Yankees wore on March 18, 2008 during an exhibition game played against Virginia Tech’s baseball team.  The iconic Yankees logo, but with a little Virginia Tech co-branding on the side! Good view of the classic Virginia Tech "VT" logo. Hopefully no one at a Yankees game asks me if it's for Vermont... Usual suspects in terms of sweatband tags and 59Fifty satin taping The iconic red, white and blue MLB batterman The cap has major significance as this particular game was played in memoriam of the  shooting that occurred on the school’s campus on April 16, 2007 .  Yesterday marked the 8th anniversary of the massacre but I vividly remember that day. I also remember how sad this cold-blooded attack made me feel for a long time thereafte

I think this is a sweet World Series side patch, but I like the ones from 2012 and 2013 that have the trophy on them even more.   I go to lots of Yankees games and I love it when I see the veteran fans wearing this cap! Get a good look at those sweatband tags from 1998!  It's not common to find this cap in unused condition. I guess some fan was still rocking his 1996 World Series cap when this one surfaced. By the time he was ready for it, the Yankees were selling caps for the 1999, 2000 and 2001 World Series, though the 2001 cap is not one that you'll see fans wearing for obvious reasons. You all know what the Yankees logo looks like and represents: pure Death Star status right there! The 2015 baseball season is officially underway and if your favorite team is 0-4, I offer my condolences and I wish you the best of luck for next season. However, if your favorite team is 4-0 at this point then I must congratulate you on your all-but-guaranteed World Ser

Before I get started on this week's Fresh Fitted, I feel obligated to offer hearty congratulations to the Boston Red Sox on their 2013 World Series championship. It's too difficult for a New York City resident to actively root for a Boston team, but in light of the Boston Marathon bombing earlier in the year my thought is that losing the World Series would have been an especially hard pill to swallow for Red Sox Nation. My only positive spin on this victory is that the New York Yankees will undoubtedly feel extra pressure to dominate the AL East next year. In light of all this, I deemed it appropriate that the first post of the off-season should showcase a rare cap from one of my favorite former Yankees farm teams: the Columbus Clippers. I know I've featured the Clippers in the recent past but this cap really stands out as one of the great forgotten ones of yesteryear. Behold the official (short-lived) on-field batting practice cap that the Clippers wore when they were a

Alright, so for this edition of Fresh Fitted Friday I thought I'd do another throwback however this time, I want to pay some respect to a ballplayer who hasn't had a lot of time on the field this season: #2, Derek Jeter. I've seen the man do some tremendous things at Yankee Stadium, but I'll always really remember him as a scrappy prospect with the Columbus Clippers. Here's a great baseball card where he's wearing a cap very similar to the one featured here today: As some of you might know, I grew up in Norfolk, VA and going to Tidewater Tides games at Met Park was an intregal part of many summers in my youth. I remember getting to the ballpark early in the afternoon when the players arrived to scam some autographs and then I'd wait for the guys to leave after the game to get even more autographs. Some of them made some snarky comments here and there, but the beauty of time is that now I can only remember the good memories. I got lots of 'gr

This cap is boss because it offers a glimpse into the small changes that MLB caps go through from year to year. The Yankees were the last team to hang onto the green underbrim style for their on-field caps before switching to the grey brims in 1994. Because this cap's style is so timeless, collectors such as myself will scour the earth for vintage caps with the elusive green underbrim. There is something so official-seeming about this cap; all others pale in comparison. These next two photos are from a post entitled 1983-1993 SF Giants Cap 4 (1991) and what I'd like to note here is that the "Authentic Diamond Collection" tags are exactly alike but that is where the similarities end. The "New Era" tags closely resemble each other but I have to deduce that the one on the Yankees cap is more recent because of the updated style of the size tag. These next two photos are from a previous post entitled 1983-1993 SF Giant

Update: Apparently I wasn't very talkative when I published this post. I probably just didn't know much about what year this cap was from and just wanted to get these photos out. I did some light digging into Trenton Thunder Google image wormhole and the earliest card I could find of a player wearing the cap with a New Era flag is Morgan Burkhart from 2000 .  I guess I maybe thought it was a good idea to take a photo with that annoying flash because it would complement the Thunder emitting from the mouths of this dual-headed beast?   This satin taping is reminiscent of the style seen on caps from 1999-2001 so I think it would be fair to guess that this cap is from 2000. The sweatband tags are similar to the 1999-2001 style, and although I have seen a lot of MLB World Series caps with the maroon and blue box style size tags, I see that less frequently on minor league caps from those years. Behold the green and gold! Too bad it's just too bright for you to a

I've lived in New York City since April of 2010 and one statement that I frequently hear from New Yorkers when the "Mid-Summer Classic" is brought up in conversation is "I don't care about the All-Star Game," and it baffles me every time. I suppose no one has much to be happy about when it's 90+ degrees in New York City but I've always thought fondly of the All-Star Game no matter what city I call home. It's a defining moment as the pennant race really intensifies at the half-way marker in the season. As for the festivities, I always enjoy watching the camaraderie among the players from rival teams within the leagues especially during the Home-Run Derby, although I do admit these events can place unnecessary strain on the players involved. Perhaps one should consider the notion that New Yorkers have a reputation for having a more traditional and serious outlook on baseball and it may be that they view the All-Star Game as a distraction from th

The 2009 New York Yankees ball cap is a special one for me because it not only marks the inaugural year of Yankee Stadium but it also reminds me of my last baseball season in California before I made New York City my new hometown. I had never owned a Yankees cap before I purchased a 2009 World Series cap. However, while the World Series patch was accurate, the logo on the rear of the cap was not the inaugural patch, but rather the grey and white MLB batter-man logo from 2010. I didn't realize that the cap I had obtained was not a correct game-worn representation until I revisited some video footage and saw that the inaugural patch was so prominent. This probably means that New Era wanted to produce more World Series caps but ran out of inaugural patch caps and used the following season's caps, which is a Bush League maneuver if you ask me! One thing that I notice about the caps with the inaugural patch is that they fit looser than the caps with the traditional MLB embroide