Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

This cap is a new favorite of mine as sometimes it gets a bit tiresome wearing the same old Yankees hat to the games. I was fortunate to attend the Rays-Yankees game on July 9, 2011 when Derek Jeter joined the 3,000 hit club. I thought back on how I somehow managed to get him to autograph some cards when he played for the Columbus Clippers either in 1994 or 1995. Even though Jeter only played in Tampa for part of of one season (1994) wearing this cap will always symbolize the amazing journey that this sensational athelete has taken. As a side note, someone who was never a Tampa Yankee, Jorge Posada, hit a grand slam during the game. Coincidentally, I wore this hat to the Rays-Yankees game on August 13, 2011 when they honored Jeter with a slew of fanfare before the game commemorating his 3,000th hit. I didn't spot another Tampa Yankees cap that day, nor did I see a Columbus Clippers or Greensboro Hornets cap for that matter either. I suppose more people would rather wear the World S

In 1993, an instant classic was born for minor league ballcaps. While many might think that Conrad the Crawdad is a hokey mascot, I'm a complete supporter of this cap. Upon the team's relocation to Hickory from Gastonia, they changed their name from the Rangers to the Crawdads and thusly switched from being an affiliate of the Texas Rangers to the Chicago White Sox. The mid-1990's was a new golden era for the White Sox from a marketing perspective when you consider the wild success of this cap as well as the oft-photographed Michael Jordan during his stint with their Double-A affiliate, the Birmingham Barons. I can't say with any certainty that the Nashville Sounds or Vancouver Canadians made as much of a splash as the other two aforementioned teams but I wouldn't mind owning a cap from either one of those clubs. These days, the Crawdads are back to being an affiliate of the Texas Rangers but I'll always remember them as an affiliate of the White Sox. I'm

Next up is an Augusta GreenJackets cap made by Pro-Line. Again, this one has no minor league baseball patch on the rear of the cap and that is something that I enjoy about caps from that era. While they are currently a minor league affiliate of the San Francisco Giants, most people largely remember them as a farm team for the Pittsburgh Pirates. They have also been affiliates of the Boston Red Sox, St. Louis Cardinals and the Detroit Tigers.          

07/05/2023 U pdate: In honor of being today being National Hawaii Day, I am updating this entry with some new photos as well as some  grammar and formatting modifications which were made with the goal in mind of altering  the original post's content as little as possible. While at a Yankees game recently, I thought back on how many minor league games I attended at Met Park/Harbor Park as a youth and how I spent the majority of my summers trying to obtain autographs from a mixed group of washed-up major leaguers and players who had yet to make a name for themselves. The differences between games of the minor league and MLB are night and day but there are some similarities. While I do enjoy the serious mentality of the major market teams, I also appreciate the laid-back small town approach toward baseball. There are many amenities to be had at major league ballparks but after emptying out my wallet at the concession stands game after game, I often find myself wishing I could pay mino

Alright, this is the last one in the 1983-1993 SF Giants cap. I like this one a lot but haven't worn it in public yet. It might be one that gets used later on but for right now I keep it safe at home! Not much to report on the specifics of the cap but I'm hoping that someone out there can profess some nerdly information on the cap's inside tags!          

Update: I modified some formatting below but mostly kept the content the same otherwise. I'm considering re-writing some of these early posts because these caps are really special to me and I've learned a lot about New Era cap history since writing this one ten years ago so stay tuned! (10/13/2021) This is a great cap that has been seeing some use lately. It's kind of a test-cap of sorts as it came with a glued-on MLB batterman logo patch and I removed it using the heat from a blow-dryer. The cap is fine and there is little evidence that the patch was there.  My main motivation in documenting these caps is to figure out some sort of timeline as to the year in which they were released however, there are stumbling blocks in my speculation.  For example, the rear MLB batterman logo did not appear until 1992, however the "Authentic Diamond Collection" tag on the inside of the cap is only stitched on halfway and does appear to resemble those from caps released before

Update: I modified some formatting below but mostly kept the content the same otherwise. I'm considering re-writing some of these early posts because these caps are really special to me and I've learned a lot about New Era cap history since writing this one ten years ago so stay tuned! (10/13/2021) I own a number of Giants caps from this era for a few reasons with the first being the construction of these caps is top-notch. I also love the fit of the 100% wool caps and the way they eventually mold to the my head. The polyester caps today last a long time and are great if you are out in the rain. In short, the wool caps provide a nostalgic value that the current caps cannot match. As I mentioned in my last post, I've found that the caps from the 1983-1993 era feature a thicker block-style logo than the one on the Orlando Cepeda signed-cap.   I have a suspicion that the lettering variance is situational but I'd like to think that there is some way to track the year-by-yea