Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

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...

My posts ahead of Labor Day Weekend from the past two years have both been  Ebbets Field Flannels  retros of caps worn by the  Denver Bears  during different eras of their existence. My reason for highlighting Denver is as a tribute to Phish's annual run of shows which have taken place there over the holiday weekend yearly since 2011, with the exception of 2020 as their entire summer tour had to be canceled due to the pandemic. Onto happier times now and even though I am not there to witness it, I can thankfully follow along from home via webcast and can confirm that Phish is poised to bring the goods over this four-night run. Because I have now written about all my Denver Bears caps, I need to pivot to Denver-adjacent caps with an Albuquerque Isotopes in a Colorado Rockies colorway. When the partnership between the Rockies and Albuquerque began in 2015, I was finally able to stop mentally associating the Pacific Coast League city with the Los Angeles Dodge...

Fans of the Grateful Dead do not need another reminder of this but today is the 29th anniversary of the passing of J erry Garcia who was  the band's principal songwriter, guitarist and vocalist. I can still remember sitting in that summer school geometry classroom when I heard the news on August 9, 1995. I was more into hip-hop and punk rock at the time but the older kids I looked up to thought the Dead was cool so I sort of did too, I suppose. Garcia would have turned 82 this year which is how old he looked due to  his stark white bushy beard and mane of frizzy hair due to hard living however he was actually only  53 years old when he died. At the time I was a teenager and now being three times as old as I was then, I realize I am nearly as old as Jerry was when he died which is a very perplexing realization. At any rate, much like baseball  has had a big impact on my life , so has Garcia's music which is why it makes me so happy to see these two interests of mine i...

While writing this week's Fresh Fitted Friday post, I am also watching the telecast of  this year's special  "MLB at Rickwood Field: A Tribute to the Negro Leagues" with the   St. Louis Cardinals (as they wear the uniforms of the St. Louis Stars) playing my San Francisco Giants (wearing uniforms of the San Francisco Sea Lions) at the oldest professional ballpark in the United States in Birmingham, AL. The Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro Leagues called Rickwood Field home as did Willie Mays when the  Alabama-native  got his first professional baseball assignment playing for the Black Barons as a 17 year old in 1948. All three scheduled events were set to honor  Mays who was the last living member of the Black Barons but died two nights before Thursday's finale. There were so many tributes (both large and small) to Mays when news of his passing arrived during Tuesday night's MILB showcase in which the  Birmingham Barons (playing as t...

Yesterday was 5/9 and it warmed my heart to see so many lovely Instagram posts honoring New Era's flagship "59Fifty" cap and its importance in this community of hat collectors. Sadly, I did not join in the fun as I am not much of a "regular poster" although this Oakland Oaks cap for 5/10 is a good way to celebrate the 510 area code in "The Town" over in the bright side of the Bay. Before I get to photos of this week's hat, I want to take a moment to give a shout out to the fans in Oakland who have been creative in their support their team in these times. I saw a recent post of a fan who only goes to A's games on the roads as well as clips of fans sitting behind home plate wearing a "Sell" shirt to the Colliseum as a plea to the owner to "do the right thing" soon. I suppose "the right thing" is as subjective as it gets but the team's impending and temporary move to West Sacramento next season will be an interest...

Right after wrapping up my Earth Day post last week I realized I had actually earmarked that 1948  Oakland Oaks  cap for my Arbor Day post this week. It actually turned out for the best because the logo on this 1940 Oaks hat is even more arboreal than last week's so I'm very thankful to be ending Earth Month on a strong note! When I first got this a few years ago, I thought the green felt on the logo might be the outline of the city of Oakland. Then I thought maybe it was a sort of reference to the Bears at Cal in Berkeley. And then today I realized the obvious: the green thing is a leaf because…trees! By the way, I also just learned that the word ellipsis (as in the punctuation I used in the last sentence) originates from the Ancient Greek word  élleipsis  which means ' leave out'? Most of my Ebbets caps are navy or black but I have to say the buckram really pops on the grey wool broadcloth.  The green on the logo of the crown's front, piping and undervis...

I picked this Oakland Oaks retro to celebrate Earth Day—which is tomorrow, April 22—because of the tree theme in the team's name and the cute little stem on the logo however there is added significance for this week's Fresh Fitted Friday selection as it was confirmed just yesterday that the Oakland Athletics have reached a deal to purchase land in Las Vegas where they hope to have a new ballpark constructed by 2027. In 1948, Oakland had no MLB team nor affiliation however the Pacific Coast League champions of that year have at least some connection with New York considering they were managed by Casey Stengel who would manage the Yankees the following season. Also, their shortstop was Billy Martin who before becoming a Yankees legend was a Bay Area native who was born and raised in Berkeley, CA. I long for the days when Ebbets would release minor league bangers such as this one. Their collaboration with '47 to produce classic MLB logos seemed to be a big hit with collector...

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...

This week's Fresh Fitted Friday selection is a 1978 Tacoma Yankees retro that continues the "Washington" theme of last week's Presidents Day post because, well Tacoma is in State of Washington state.  I picked this hat because today is February 24 and fans of the show Twin Peaks widely recognize this date to be the one where Agent Cooper came to the fictional town in Washington to investigate the death of Laura Palmer. The lettering here is a little more rigid than I would expect to see on a Yankees-affiliated hat but I still prefer the resemblance of Kanji characters on this hat over the disjointed look of the old Tampa Yankees cap logo . I love that there was no requirement for this cap to feature a batterman or New Era flag but most of all I'm glad to have purchased from Hat Club in June 2018, well before New Era closed its last US-based factory in Derby, NY.  I also like how extra on the Kelly this cap goes. It's perfect for St. Patrick's Day which I...

I have been a baseball fan for about 90% of my life and it wasn't until Cleveland's baseball team became the Guardians ahead of the 2022 season that I experienced a Major League team changing their name — with the lone exception being when the Montreal Expos became the Washington Nationals upon their move to U.S. capital in 2005. While the Nationals rebranding had more to do with their arrival in a new locale, their NFL counterparts became the Washington Commanders this season as they finally dropped the offensive slur that they used as their name from 1937–2020, at which point they were temporarily known as the Washington Football Team. At this current time the only professional sports organization that is actually respectful in its usage of a name referring to Native Americans is the Spokane Indians and that is due the ongoing relationship between the team and  Spokane Tribe of Indians that  has was  forged in 2006 when both parties collaborated on the team's rebranding...

I was planning on taking off this week on account of the holiday weekend but then I remembered that I'm coming off a nice-sized break so I decided to up the ante and do a long-winded  double-cap post which is something I am fairly certain was last done with vintage and retro Jacksonville Expos caps  I wrote about in 2017. Otherwise, the closest I've come to such a thing in recent years was with consecutive posts of very similar hats worn by the  Albany-Colonie Yankees which was also in 2017 as well as the vintage and retro 1988-92 Buffalo Bisons caps  in 2021. This week's double-cap post features the logo the Denver Bears wore from 1982-84 which has been my most sought after design ever since I got serious about hat collecting many years ago. As I've stated in previous posts, I went to college in Colorado which probably explains why most things related to the Centennial State are of interest to me. As is the case with many hat hoarders, it all began with ...