Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

I had so much fun last week writing about my vintage Asheville Tourists cap that I decided one post was simply not enough! While last week touched on a vintage cap logo, this week's post features the one they have worn from 2011 through today. What made last week's cap especially fun for me was that I had friends visiting from out of town which meant that I wore it spending all day Saturday in my current home city of New York being a...you guessed it: Tourist!  That symbolism was giggle-worthy when it finally occurred to me and as it happens his week I'm on vacation in Colorado which is one of my former homes as it is the state where I attended university. This only means that it is now my turn to play the part of Tourist in a place that is both familiar and foreign to me! While I'm here, I'll be looking forward to revisiting all of my old haunts and learning about new ones, all while wearing this sweet Asheville Tourists hat that I've had in waiting since 20

How does that one saying go? " Another week on Baseball Milquetoast, another cap from a South Atlantic League team" ?  Who is that jolly bear carrying a suitcase and a wooden bat? Why that's none other than "Ted E. Tourist" of course. Bonus points because even though he's not a local,  he's at least trying to fit in by wearing a ballcap with an "A" for Asheville rather than some shooby dime-store fedora. It's difficult to pinpoint a year of origin for most Pro-Line caps as they weren't known for varying their sweatband tags from year to year. Still, the placement of these tags looks similar to this Kauai Emeralds cap  that was worn from 1993-1994 as well as this Greensboro Bats cap and this Tucson Toros cap , both from 1996. It's mind-boggling to me that this cap still has the original tags attached to it yet, it is basically old enough to buy itself one of the many different and delicious craft beers brewed in Ashe

Considering one of the earliest minor league baseball caps I ever owned was a Greensboro Hornets one, it's hard to believe it's taken me this long to write about this team's hat. Well, I suppose that's only partially true as I once posted a 1996 Greensboro Bats cap but I'm really glad to finally show some love to this iconic gem. Greensboro only had this cap logo from 1990 through 1993, but it was glorious while it lasted A red hornet is not one you want to tangle up with, especially not one wielding a bat The sweatband tags here are identical to those found on my post of this Everett Giants cap Grey underbrim, white sweatband and the absence of the New Era and MILB  batterman logos is the best combination  When I first started going to Norfolk (then-Tidewater) Tides games as a youth in the early 1990's, I'm not sure if I knew there was any difference between the players I was watching on the field and the ones from televised games

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

I know what's going through your mind right now: "enough with the snapbacks, already!" is what you are thinking, right? Well, you're correct in that the snapbacks have gotten much love around here lately but I couldn't help myself from sharing this particularly fresh 1990 Everett Giants snapback with you.  The reason it's releasing from the vault today is because my beloved San Francisco Giants are in town to play the New York Mets this weekend and I wanted a unique hat to wear to the game tonight. I also decided to wear this snapback to the game because it fits me a little better than the fitted 1992 version of the cap that I wrote about a few weeks ago.  This particular variation of the cap is one that they wore only for the 1990 season A closer look at the single-season beauty that is this cap logo. The only inside tag on this one is of the New Era variety Here's a look at the Made in U.S.A. writing on the back of the sn

I've written about the Ft. Myers Miracle on-feld cap before so this week's Fresh Fitted is just going to be a cursory look of a custom variant of that hat.  The main colors here are black, silver and pink and this colorway definitely goes nicely with sneakers that took part in the "South Beach" trend over recent years. They could have made the brim black but I think that the gunmetal is a nice touch as is the grey underbrim. The silver M is nicely subdued on the black crown and I dig the palm tree's pink leaves. The pink detail on the New Era flag and the MILB pops nicely. This custom colorway came out in late 2014 and the inside tags are consistent with other caps from that year not excluding the aforementioned Ft. Myers Miracle on-field cap. Of course, no trip to Miami is complete without an obligatory Golden Girls reference so I've got this enamel pin of my favorite character from the show: Sofia. The text belo

This week's Fresh Fitted is not only a freshie but it is one that has a deep sentimental value to me as it is the cap that the Virginia Tech baseball team wore when they hosted the New York Yankees in a preseason exhibition game at English Field in the spring of 2008.  As I've noted in a previous post  about the cap that the Yankees wore during that game, it was played in memoriam of the Blacksburg Massacre at Virginia Tech the previous year. Tomorrow marks the 9th anniversary of the shooting, so today we will look upon the hat that the Hokies wore when the Yankees came to town.   The Yankee's "NY" logo has seen many custom colorways but very few are as powerful as this tribute made to Virginia Tech The Hokies "VT" logo on the wearer's left side is a solid show of respect from the Yankees The orange batterman and eyelets really pop here. This cap also varies from the one the Yankees wore that game in that it swaps out the