Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

I struggled to come up with this week's Fresh Fitted Friday selection until I decided  the halfway point of Spring Training is as good a time as any to show love to Florida, especially in light of recent current events that have taken place there. I then discovered the perfect cap tucked away deep in my closet: a 2006 Jacksonville Suns "Batting Practice" hat.   I'm a glutton for Jacksonville baseball caps, even if it's one that is definitely from the years they were affiliated with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Luckily for me, this cap features a Golden State Warriors colorway... Besides comfort, a big reason why I love BP caps is because they are the rarest caps to find since they were produced in such limited quantities. It's also hard to pin a year down on when a BP cap was worn but I was able to do so with a little help from my google-box. Minor league baseball cards do not typically show players wearing batting practice hats and uniforms so I'

If you follow  @baseballmilquetoast on Instagram —if not, please do so immediately— you'll know that on MLK Day I posted a photo of my Birmingham Black Barons cap to commemorate Dr. King's legacy and more specifically, his "Letter From Birmingham Jail" which was an open letter written while Dr. King was unjustly incarcerated.  While that hat has much historical significance, I also have an emotional connection with the Birmingham Barons of the Southern League as I associate that team with  Frank Thomas, who is  my all-time favorite baseball player. This card from 1990 shows Thomas wearing the Old English "B" cap logo lettering that the Barons had used since their reintroduction into the Southern League in 1981.  This is the photo used in Thomas' 1990 Best Card and I love that it's signed by the man himself. I don't collect autographs anymore but if I ever met Thomas I'd have to ask him for one. "The Big Hurt"

Despite my moral and ethical obligations, I must congratulate the Los Angeles Dodgers for their NLCS win and upcoming return to the World Series. My heart is cold and black so any joy a Dodgers fan feels makes me miserable however I did get some good news this week: there is talk of MLB returning to the great city of Montreal  and maybe Portland, Oregon too! My main issue with Portland getting a team is that while it has a long history of being one of the great Triple-A cities, it hasn't had a team at that level since 2010. I do believe that Portland has the population and the income to support an MLB franchise so I wish them luck. After all, I like the natural rivalry between Seattle and Portland so this could be good. Although I have concerns about Portland's chances, I feel there isn't a city more deserving of a team right now than Montreal. I've spilled much ink lamenting the demise of the Expos so I'd love for Montreal to get another shot. This rumor has

At this point I must admit that last week's call for black magick was useless. Since there's no point in summoning sorcery for this week, I'm just praying the Giants don't get swept by the Padres this weekend and ending the season with 100 losses. Since I'm tuning in to that series while in Atlanta, this week's Fresh Fitted Friday selection is a Greenville Braves cap. Bonus points for this week's photos at a Pearle Vision in Roswell, GA. And extra bonus points for the 70's interior.  While the  sweatband tags and  satin taping style are consistent with caps I've featured from the mid 1990's, this cap is most likely not from any time before 1999 which is when the New Era flag began to appear on minor league caps. This Joe Nelson card from 1999 is the oldest Greenville Braves card I could find with a player in a cap sporting the New Era flag. Image courtesy of COMC This cap logo is a reminder of how dominant the Atl

If this is your first visit to the blog, I welcome you! And if you're a regular reader, thanks for coming back despite my neglect of minor league caps for the past three consecutive weeks, which might be some kind of record; I'm not sure. Either way, I hope this week's vintage West Tennessee Diamond Jaxx cap makes up for the recent lack of MILB love! This is another cap that came from The Great eBay Haul that I've been writing about over the past few weeks. The Diamond Jaxx rebranding in 2002 was the first big client win for Brandiose , which back then was a just a fledgling design firm known as Plan B Branding. Plan B (now Brandiose) conceived "Jim Dandy" as the mascot for the Diamond Jaxx in 2002. According to Bloomberg Businessweek , "Dandy" is "a Disneyfied version of  a miner wielding a baseball bat modified into a pickax" While every MLB team began wearing New Era's polyester caps with black sweatbands and

This week's Fresh Fitted is a Jackson Generals cap that I picked up in late 2014. I initially thought that this cap's team was the same  Jackson Generals that I knew about in the 1990's but it turns out I was wrong. Check out these photos of this week's selection and then read more about how a team's moniker confused me ever so greatly! I probably love the serifs on the "J" and "G" because I'm a San Francisco Giants fan. This is super classy. Standard sweatband tags but a surprise under the New Era tag lets you know this cap is Made in U.S.A. Black and white MILB batterman? Yes please! Have you ever listened to Johnny Cash and June Carter’s song “Jackson” and wondered whether they were referring to Jackson, Tennessee or Jackson, Mississippi? Well, you might not have but that’s probably because you either don’t care or maybe you just assumed that they were singing about Jackson, TN because Cash spent the last fifty o