Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

Has it really been almost four months since my last post? Of course that’s a rhetorical question but I still want to explain why I lapsed for so long. The quick answer is I’ve been preoccupied with other activities over the past few months however at some point during that time I should have posted a quick blurb about the hiatus but I kept getting distracted. I also lost interest in all things baseball as I saw my San Francisco Giants play terribly once again this year and now that the regular season has come to a close, I’ve decided to hate-watch the NLCS. For the second year in a row, the Los Angeles Dodgers are clear favorites to win the pennant but I’m going to be rooting for the Milwaukee Brewers in the series. This petty tactic is the reason why this week’s Fresh Fitted Friday selection is a Carolina Mudcats cap as they are the Class A affiliate of the Brewers in the Carolina League. How fortuitous that I just happened to have the tags still on this cap that's ov...

I made it to my first and only game in the month of June last Saturday and while I considered posting the new hats I picked up at the stadium that night, this week's Portland Sea Dogs hat is even more special as I am choosing to feature it in honor of my friends getting married in Maine this weekend.  You have to respect this logo's longevity as the design has been with the club since the inaugural season in 1994. There's no chatter of it going away although there are a few weekend specific caps being worn this year. As we've seen on other hats, the blue box sweatband tags came about sometime in 2005 as did the "Originators of the True Fitted" text on the satin taping, both of which are featured here. I don't usually have much to say about the MILB batterman but one thing of note on this cap is that it's a thicker patch similar to the 2006 West Tennessee Diamond Jaxx hat I wrote about in June 2017. As I mentioned earlier, there a...

It's that time of the year again, folks. The Los Angeles Dodgers are coming to New York to play the Mets. As always, I'm tempted to go just to heckle the Dodgers on behalf of my San Francisco Giants fandom. I'll probably skip this series despite tickets being cheap and plentiful as the Mets are well below .500 which means the fans are done for the season too. If I did go to one of the games, I'd wear my New York Giants hat to troll the Dodgers even though I have the perfect hat for a Dodgers fan to wear: a Great Falls Dodgers cap which I believe to be from the 1996 season.  I've posted photos of my all blue Great Falls Dodgers cap before but this version with a white crown is perfect for summer, besides the fact that I despise the Dodgers and would never actually wear it! The MILB batterman here tells me this cap has to be from 1994 at the earliest. Also, i t's rare to find this cap let alone one with unpopped tags!  The absence of the New Era...

For the third week in a row, I've had the perfect hat to wear to a game and ended up not going however that's not going to stop me from sharing some photos of it. I picked this Syracuse Chiefs hat to wear to the Washington Nationals series at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday but I chose to go see Robert Plant at Forrest Hills Stadium instead. The Chiefs wore this cap logo from 1989 through 1996. It's a challenge to ascertain what year this cap is from as it's a DeLong and not New Era, which usually give hints when looking at the sweatband tags. Disclaimer: I've worn this hat around more than a few times already so it's not as Fresh of a Fresh Fitted Friday as previous weeks. Sorry about that! This hat would have been a perfect troll on the Nationals as their player development contract runs out at the end of this year and the Mets are going to be setting up shop there in 2019. It's not known where Washington's Triple-A affiliate will b...

I didn’t end up going to a game during the Orioles-Mets series earlier this week but regardless of that, the hat that I would have worn to the ballpark is one that pays tribute to both teams. The road cap that the Norfolk Tides have been wearing since 2016 is another gem designed by Brandiose. When I wrote about the current Tides home cap previously, I brought up how the locals were not impressed when the main logo was revealed. Now that I have the road version, I think this one should have been introduced as the home cap as its nautical design is better suited to the conservative population of Norfolk, VA. Having grown up in Norfolk, I can tell you that history plays a huge role in the city’s identity. In fact, I still hear folks griping about missing the Mets, who were the Tides’ parent team from 1969 until they became affiliated with the O’s in 2007. Even though Norfolk isn’t yet on board with the cartoonish logos that are de rigueur, their commitment to the ...

While I haven’t been to a game since last week’s post, I am planning on going to one during the Orioles visit to Citi Field next week. My decision on which game will be based on a combination of weather and whether...I can choose between less-than stellar matchups such as Dylan Bundy facing Jason Vargas or David Hess against Seth Lugo. This week’s Fresh Fitted Friday selection is a Kane County Cougars hat as it’s the perfect bridge from last week’s Marlins series and the impending Orioles visit. The reason for this being Kane County was the Midwest League Class-A affiliate for the Baltimore Orioles during the 1991 and 1992 seasons and then for the Florida Marlins from 1993-2002. The lifespan of this Kane County Cougars cap logo is incredible. The team wore this damn thing from their inaugural season in 1991 all the way through 2015, which is way more than 9 lives by my count. This cap has a “Made in U.S.A.” (or rather, “Hencho en EE.UU.”) tag and the satin taping features...

As you know I’ve been wearing caps from visiting club’s minor league affiliates to games I’ve attended this season. So when I went to the Marlins-Mets series finale at CitiField this past Wednesday night, I wore a cap from the Greensboro Grasshoppers, who have been the Marlins’ Single-A affiliate in the South Atlantic League since 2003. The Grasshoppers have stayed true to this cap logo since 2005 and it has appeared on a variety of different colored crowns such as green, orange and this light khaki one which I think suits it best. This cap was a recent purchase so it's no surprise it's not USA-made but that's still a shame. I also like the way the orange and green MILB batterman looks on the back of this cap's crown. Even though this is not a rare or vintage hat, you can count on me to do some digging to tie in a cap’s present to its past. For me, the biggest connection is the Marlins new owner, Derek Jeter, who played in Greensboro when it was affiliat...