Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

Apologies for starting this week's post with a math lesson, but it's Pi Day so I must mention the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter is referred to by the Greek letter “π” and has an irrational number value, which means it continues on into infinity. However, I am assigning it a rational number value of 3.1415926535 to save space here. Mathematics enthusiasts have celebrated that wacky number on March 14 (also written as 3/14) every year since 1988 as Pi Day which provides enough pretext for eating copious amounts of pie, whether they be sweet, savory or even both. The last time March 14 fell on a Friday was in 2014 and unfortunately I did not have the idea then to dedicate a post to it like I did this year! The only pie-related baseball caps I am aware of are the Lehigh Valley IronPigs "Shoofly" alternate or the Portland SeaDogs "Whoopie Pie" identity and I am not jazzed enough about either one to make a special purchase for this post so ...

When I sat down to write last week's Joplin Miners post, I had yet not considered how the cap logo's "J" could have been a suitable pre-farewell tribute to Juan Soto and his time ending with the New York Yankees but depending on how you look at things, it could also have been regarded as a plea for him to stay in the Bronx! Either way, the Soto Sweepstakes ended when news broke this past Sunday night that the star outfielder agreed to some comically large compensation amount  by signing with the New York Mets. And t his time I will take credit for the tie-in with Soto and the "J" on the logo of this "Fresh Mesh" snapback the Jackson Mets wore from 1979 through 1987. The last Fresh Mesh cap I wrote about was this 1988 Greensboro Hornets post  back in April 2021 but both logos are very close in terms of my love for them. I'm really surprised how clean the sweatband is on this hat which could very well be 40 years old at this point. I am pretty s...

This week's Fresh Fitted Friday post marks the sixth time that I've written about a cap worn by a minor league team from Nashville,TN. That might seem rather trivial however I assure you it's not as all the other posts were of Nashville Sounds caps while this week's topic is the  Southern League's  Nashville Xpress, who only existed from 1993 through 1994. The first initial in my name is "N" so of course that and the music themed nature of the Sounds logos over the years leads me to appreciate their designs greatly. But in addition to being a big fan of music, I also love traveling by rail which is why I decided to feature this Nashville Xpress cap today in celebration of tomorrow being National Train Day. The inspiration behind the team name Xpress comes from the existence of train tracks just outside Herschel Greer Stadium which was the ballpark the team shared with their more established counterparts, the Sounds.  The New Era brand tag here looks like ...

Summer is almost in full swing in New York City and outside of the occasional 90º day, I'm happy to welcome it. The two main things I need to remember at all those fun hangs in the park is to stay hydrated and apply sunscreen, with the former being especially apt as "National Don't Fry Day" is recognized today as it is done each year on the  Friday before Memorial Day Weekend. Overexposure to the sun is something that too often goes unnoticed as we spend time relaxing outdoors and this is especially true during the summer months  so this holiday is a perfect opportunity to raise awareness in regards to the risks involved with those otherwise good times. Because of this, the phrase ‘slip, slop, slap and wrap’—which originated in Australia and New Zealand and is now used worldwide—encourages sun enthusiasts to slip on a shirt, slop on sunscreen,  slap on a hat, and wrap on sunglasses. To that point, I'm not sure if there is any better way for me to honor the sig...

If you're the kind of person who keeps up with the National Today calendar, you'll notice I forgot to mention in last week's Asheville Yacumamas post that another reason (besides Mother's Day) I decided to write about the Asheville Tourists "Copa" cap  on that date is because "National Tourism Day" has taken place in the US on  May 7 every year since 1983. Hopefully you forgive my oversight in that instance and in the spirt of continuing on with the National Day trend, today is National Buttermilk Biscuit Day so I’ve got a Montgomery Biscuits alternate cap that I estimate to be from 2004.  I've talked about the Poochie Effect lots here lately but this logo is latter day Poochie rather than the 1.0 Era, which I believe began in 1994 with the advent of the Charleston RiverDogs, Brevard County Manatees, Ottawa Lynx, Albany Polecats and to a lesser extent, Augusta GreenJackets. This sweatband tag set is identical to my  2003 Hudson Valley Renegades...

Ok, that's it. I don't have any more Southern League teams to write about (for now) and that's probably a good thing because I'm feeling some mild accomplishment that with this week's Chattanooga Lookouts cap, I have now written about eight of the ten teams in the league! From 1988 through 2008, the Cincinnati Reds had their Double-A affiliate in Chattanooga and after a ten year absence is back in Nooga as of the 2019 season. Once thing about Lookouts fans is they have to be good spellers as there are some real some doozies: Chattanooga, Cincinnati, Tennessee. Thank godnes for spelcheck. I haven't featured a Pro-Line cap here for a while so it's good to have one again for this week's post. Unfortunately, sweatband tags for this producer did not vary much throughout the 1990's so it's next to impossible for me to determine which year this cap is from. Ah, the parent team embroidered on the back of the cap. I remember thinking that wa...

Regular readers of this blog know that I like to get topical on here and while that can  potentially  lead to posts seeming to be dated down the line, I still enjoy the correlation between hats and certain current events and holidays.  That being said, I am surprised that for last week's post I didn't think to write about a team from a city named Columbus as we were l eading into Columbus Day weekend. Thankfully we aren't too many days removed from the actual holiday so it still feels timely to feature this Columbus Catfish hat for this week's post. It might seem tame compared to today's current MILB caps but this  Mudcats logo —a long with the Durham Bulls cap—helped usher in MILB caps into the mainstream consciousness. This New Era tag is commonly seen on snapbacks from the late 1980's and early 1990's. The lack of the MILB batterman solidifies the theory that this cap is not from the mid-1990's at all. The squarish brim and plain ...

It was hard for me not to have a proper Southern League hat for last week's Fresh Fitted Friday, so I'm fully energized this week to be able to share this 1999 Knoxville Smokies hat with you this time around. I have to admit when this logo came out in 1993, I didn't think anything was special about it besides the fact that bonafide prospects like Carlos Delgado and Shawn Green wore the cap that season. My best guess is that this cap is from 1999 as that is the year that the New Era flag began appearing on the side of MILB caps as well as the fact that the white taping and sweatband tags are identical to this 1 999 Capital City Bombers cap . Here's a flipped-up view where if you zoom in you'll see the modernized, yet tonal, New Era branding on the adjustable snap itself. Even though this is a snapback, I feel fortunate to have snagged this cap as it's not one that seems to come around as often as one would think. Another reason my guess is that th...

Last week I mentioned I was running low on Southern League caps so it's no surprise that I'm stretching a bit for this week's Fresh Fitted Friday . As you probably know, most of my posts are on-field caps, but  this week's Jacksonville Suns cap is a replica of the cap worn in 1968, which to make things worse is when they competed in the International League. I dig how the "J" here looks super laid back, like it could almost be a "G" and the more I think about it, this "J" is just a metaphor for a super laid back Florida guy. The Made In USA tag is proudly on display here and with good reason. Ebbets Field Flannels might not produce all of the cap logos that I wish they would, but the ones they do release are of utmost quality. I don't write about Ebbets hats much but I just want to note how I appreciate how the black sweatband doesn't show signs of wear and the green underbrim slowly gets darker over time which is fun to ...

I'd love to continue celebrating the Southern League, but it seems that after writing about five of the ten current teams, I've run out of caps to write about! Because of this, I've decided to share some images of a more recent—but still vintage—Birmingham Barons cap than the 1993-94 Barons cap that I wrote about almost two years ago. The Barons have sported an Old English "B" as their cap logo in every image I can find going back to 1981, which is when the Montgomery Rebels franchise was moved to Birmingham to become the Barons. The tags here are the classic 1999-2001 configuration featuring "The Nations Highest Quality Fitted Cap" text along the satin taping and of course, back during those years that statement was true. Nowadays, New Era caps aren't so much the best thing ever but I digress. Nothing but respect for the silver and black batterman here. Sometimes I wonder if the Barons logo is as ubiquitous as I believe it to be. Of...