Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

After bringing the heat last week, I really wanted to continue the love for the Albany Yankees and since I just happened to have an even more rare hat of theirs on ice, you know I had to do it to ‘em! Even though Albany wore two different cap logos in 1994, the one shown here was only worn during that final season in Albany which makes slapping a year on this hat a slam dunk. I also love that future Hall-of-Famers  Andy Pettitte  and Derek Jeter  wore this cap during that season. The New Era and size tags on this cap are the same as last week although u nlike last week’s cap, the New Era and MILB tags haven’t been ripped out of this one. Also of note, last week's ripped out MILB tag looks to be an older version of the one used for this cap. While I would love it if the Albany Yankees caps that I’ve featured over the past few weeks receive the retro treatment, I just hope they don’t get MAGA-tized with a custom all red release. I know I’ve been r

In celebration of the first Spring Training exhibition games of 2018, I’ve got something extra special to share for this week’s Fresh Fitted Friday : a 1994 Albany-Colonie Yankees cap. I'm glad to finally check this cap off my wishlist. Well, really it's just moving into the second tier because I'd like to eventually find one without the red button and eyelets but enough with the nitpicking! If you look closely you can tell that the tags that were ripped out are ones that were used from 1994-1996. Because the Double-A affiliate's last season in Albany was 1994, this cap could only be from that year. I've seen the MILB batterman on caps that could be from 1993 but I'm holding firm in my estimation that this cap is from 1994 due to the ripped out size tags used in the photo above this one. If you are familiar with my cap wishlist, you know most are there because I love their logo design but some are also there for the rarity. This cap meets both

It's official. The Houston Astros are 2017 World Series champions and now that there are no more baseball games until the Spring, it's time to remember  the words that the Starks in Winterfell are known to say: "winter is coming." Question: did you like the Game of Thrones  reference? I was going to go 80's Glam/Hair Metal and say, "In the words of Cinderella, 'it's gonna be a long cold winter' without baseball" but I didn't think many of y'all would get the reference. No matter how you put it, the impending winter solstice without games occupying my mind gives me time for pondering (or ruminating, musing, etc.) new quips for the blog however I'm certain everyone in the Los Angeles Dodgers organization will probably use that time to wonder "what could have been" had they won Game 7. As a San Francisco Giants fan, I'm feeling a toxic level of schadenfreude running through me knowing that although my team suc

Alright folks, I admit last week's cap was not very tantalizing but if every week's post features an exciting hat then what is an exciting hat? Ok well, maybe you just have high standards for this site so I should just shut up and deliver this ultra-rare treat: a super vintage Fort Lauderdale Yankees cap. A lot has happened in this past week's news cycle but let's not soon forget the devastation that  Hurricane Irma wreaked in the Caribbean as well as many parts of Florida, including Fort Lauderdale. For Tampa, it meant the Rays were not be able to play a home series against the Yankees so that series ended up getting played at CitiField in New York.  It was a rare treat to see the Yankees play somewhere other than Yankee Stadium so I wore my Fort Lauderdale Yankees  (rather than a Tampa Yankees)   hat to honor the occasion as well as to show solidarity with my Floridian friends. I suppose I've always associated Fort Lauderdale with pinstripes because

I'm conflicted about the All Star Break. On one hand, I like that teams get a chance to take a breather before ramping up for playoff runs, or in the case of my San Francisco Giants, a brief respite from a season that is a complete disaster. And then on the other hand, I really don't like being without baseball (especially fantasy) even if it's for a few short days. One thing I do like about the break is the All Star Game, although this one was annoying because it was the first year in which the ASG patch shifted to the wearer's right side as the New Era flag is now mandatory on every official on-field cap. Some don't mind it but I find it distracting so I'm not going to buy any of the ASG caps unless they're on clearance.  Because I miss the glory days when teams were not forced to blatantly advertise the companies that manufacture their uniforms, I decided to take a break from writing about Minor League caps to showcase a few of the MLB hats tha

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

Disclaimer : For the first time in a long while, this is a post that is not about Tim Raines or the Montreal Expos. I've spilled much ink over Raines and the Expos lately but now is the time to move past the celebration phase of the 2016 Hall of Fame voting results. I do believe this is an acceptable time to make a case for a player I grew up watching and one who deserves more Hall of Fame votes than he's received thus far: the inimitable and easily irritable Gary Sheffield! I realize a one-off blog post isn't going to get the man inducted into Cooperstown. Shef had his troubles defensively but it's hard to argue against the strong  offensive numbers he put up during his 22 year career. Even though Shef wasn't a DH, his numbers rival Edgar Martinez, Vladamir Guerrero and David Ortiz who are each worthy of induction.  /rant Whether you think Shef belongs in the Hall or not shouldn't stop you from enjoying the photos below which are of a signed hat th