Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

Well folks, thanks for being understanding of my need to take a minor break from the good ole Baseball Milquetoast blog experience last week but rest assured because we're back now and ready to be better than ever!  I've spent most of this pandemic writing about West Coast caps and since I'm ready to start showing love to the East Coast once again, we're going to start that trend off with a Reading Phillies hat which is fitting as I'm totally STOKED on Pennsylvania at the moment. I've never been much of a fan of red hats and especially less so over the last four years but there's a small chance I'll warm up to them again soon because 2020 has been a wild year so who knows what's going to happen next, right?!? Reading wore this cap from 1992 through 1997 but the lack of the New Era flag tag on the sweatband confirms that this particular one wasn't worn after 1996. I have come to believe that the MILB batterman began to appear on MILB caps in 1993

The South Atlantic League celebration continues this week with another Lakewood BlueClaws cap but this time we're taking a look at the cap logo that the team wore in its early years, 2004 to be exact.  You might be wondering how I could be so certain that this cap is from 2004 and the answer to that lies in the heart of cap as the gold taping inside the crown commemorates the 50th anniversary of the 59Fifty cap. The only other cap that I've seen with this special taping is the  Ogden Raptors cap that I wrote about in October 2017 . The logo on this week's cap depicts "Pinchy" clutching a baseball that is giant in proportion to itself which is fun but the logo is a little blurry. The team corrected this recently by mildly sprucing up the logo and below is a view of one of its alternate on-field caps which features the updated image. I don't feel a strong connection to this cap so it's going  on the  Trading Block   as I'm sure some

So I ran out of Carolina League hats faster than I wanted to but we'll keep the southern flavor going with some South Atlantic League caps that I've had on the back-burner for a while. I haven't written about a Sally League team in almost a year so I dug up some gems to share with y'all over the next few weeks, starting with this Lakewood BlueClaws cap. Based on  the cursory research I've done for this week's post, the  BlueClaws having been wearing this logo at most of their home games since at least 2010. Another tidbit I stumbled across is that the BlueClaws will have a Grateful Dead Night on June 22, 2019. No word on special caps but I caught a glimpse of the trippy uniforms they'll be wearing. Grateful Dead Night announced for Lakewood BlueClaws https://t.co/8ZFK2GWLx6 — Asbury Park Press (@AsburyParkPress) February 6, 2019 I'm glad I saw that tweet because it reminded me that I've had this cap on the shelf for far too long an

I've had a lot of fun over the past two months writing about classic International League teams and the different caps that teams have worn over the years but I think this week's Lehigh Valley IronPigs "Fighting Bacon" cap will be the 8th and final cap of this run. Just like many of the cap logo designs that Brandiose produces, this Bacon is a surly character who's ready to rumble as his anger is sizzling hot. Like the  "Bacon and Eggs"/"Eggs and Bacon" cap  that I wrote about on December 28, 2018, the origin of this cap's logo comes from another Food Fight type of series. This time the IronPigs took on the identity of Bacon while the Fresno Grizzlies of the Pacific Coast League were the Tacos.  While the IronPigs once again turned to the brain geniuses of Brandiose for their design, Fresno used an in-house design team of artists named Dorian Castro and Andy Inman. I like the Bacon logo more but if I also really dig Fresno&

As much as I want to start this new year off with a fresh start for Fresh Fitted Friday, I just can't help wanting to do a continuation of last week's theme so I decided this week's hat needs to be the Lehigh Valley IronPigs home cap. Brandiose designed this cap which the IronPigs have worn for most of their home games since their  inaugural season in 2008 . I love the 3D embroidery on the crown and that the fierce looking pig has become a touchstone in terms of design elements for Brandiose.  Because the logo and sweatband tags haven't varied much in the time since this cap first came out, it's almost impossible to decipher which year this cap was purchased although it was Made In U.S.A so it's likely not that recent. I appreciate you coming to the site to read about this now-iconic cap logo and I hope you return next week as I have another fun cap from the IronPigs cap artillery that I'm looking forward to sharing with you.  Ev

I've finally run out of classic Eastern League caps, y'all. The last few weeks have been fun but I'm really excited to share a recent pick-up that has a timely meaning to me. I'll be in Philadelphia this weekend celebrating a good friend's birthday and because "R" is her last initial, I'll be wearing a Reading Phillies snapback in her honor. Like the Albany-Colonie Yankees logo, this one reminds me of fond memories collecting baseball cards as a youngster. As far as I can tell from the old photos in my research, this is the logo that Reading stuck with from around 1980 until 1991. The following year was when the caps went from maroon to MAGA-tized red and the serifs went from pointy to bubbly: I tried finding a card from a recognizable player from that 1992 season but there really were none. The closest I could find was Mike Lieberthal. The maroon crown with the green underbrim is such a legendary combination. Don't fight it, Fig

Every once in a while a beauty comes around that is easy to appreciate even though you don't know exactly what it is. Such is the case with this vintage cap that I (have led myself to) believe is a Reading Phillies cap from the 1980's. A little background: other than the Lakeland Tigers of the Florida State League, no other minor league team has consistently held a player development program with the same major league team as long as the Reading has with its parent club in Philadelphia.  Because of this, it's very likely that a cap collector would see a maroon cap with white lettering as seen here and think the logo belongs to Philadelphia's long-standing Reading affiliate. At least that was my reaction when I first laid eyes on this relic, and besides the logos are so similar! Looking at the sweatband's New Era tag, I can see that it looks exactly like the one on this  vintage San Francisco Giants cap . Notice that there is also no period (pun