Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

It has been over five years since my  1980-92 Reading Phillies snapback  post so I am extra excited bout this this week's  Fresh Fitted Friday  which is a special one because I am finally able to feature a fitted version of the cap. This cap is one of the many stunning MILB releases by the one and only  @djmach716  from New Era shop in Buffalo, NY. Back in August I featured the  "New Era Buffalo Exclusive" Vermont Expos  which was also obtained from the flagship via an assist from my friend  @yellowsub73 . I was hesitant to name which other caps I wanted to scoop up from the store however this week's Reading Phillies hat marks the first revelation of that set and soon enough I will be sharing more from my recent haul. This is about as close as you can get to the 1980s Reading Phillies logo and I am fairly certain we won't see a retro this good ever again. My fear is based on releases in the recent past where the bigger stores have messed up t...

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 ...

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...

08/27/2023 Update : I'm rather embarrassed that it has taken me this long to update this post with disclaimer that I don't actually own this cap. I've only written about a handful of hats that I don't actually own but at times I feel doing so is necessary as it helps collectors come up with accurage years in which caps were produced. To keep things more organized, I've added a "Disclaimer" logo to this post as well as others in which it would also be applicable. This Fresh Fitted Friday post is for a cap 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 1980s. 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 Readi...