Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

It's been just over a month since I've last featured a snapback but now I feel compelled to write about one after learning some interesting information while researching the origins of the Casper Ghosts last week. I learned that the Pioneer League team was originally known as the Butte Copper Kings, which is a cap that I own and haven't featured yet… until now! The Copper Kings wore this cap logo from 1989 through 1995 however it's clear this one is from the earlier end of that range. The green underbrim is a giveaway that this cap is from before 1994. Also, the  44  on the underbrim tells me this was a game used cap. This cap does not have an MILB tag and the New Era tag resembles the one from my  1992 Tidewater Tides cap . The cleanliness is about the same too.   I don't know who #44 was on the Copper Kings but I can think of three spectacular players who did   have this uniform number:  Hank Aaron ,  Willie McCovey  and  Reggie Jackson . Ano

We're only a few days away from Halloween so it's a must that this week's Fresh Fitted has an All Hallow's theme. There are some teams with scarier and/or spookier logos out there (eg. Lake Elsinore Storm , Orem Owls  and Ogden Raptors ) but the fact that the "Casper Ghosts" team name has expired, this cap seems even more haunted than ever. To prove my point about the ghoulish nature of this cap, look no further than the way in which the Casper Rockies decided to unveil their rebranded look  on Halloween back in 2007. Brandiose was at the helm of the creation of the new identity and its success with this effort solidified their reputation as a top-tier design firm in the world of sports logos. This cap logo glows in the dark but my camera is simply not powerful enough to capture this awesomeness. Luckily Chris Creamer's Sportslogos site is way better blog than mine and has no issues getting the job done. While the Casper Ghosts ceased to ex

At this point last week I made a desperate plea for Joe Maddon and the Chicago Cubs to swiftly "take care" of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS…because I hate the Dodgers. Well, a week has passed and the Cubs are one win away from making that request a reality. The end of the Dodgers season basically means I can stop worrying about them potentially being World Series champions. This frees up lots of time for fall activities such as getting in Halloween mode by watching horror and sci-fi type movies. Like any normal person I enjoy movies about supernatural elements that set out to destroy the world (or small towns) and the supernatural forces that aim to defeat those forces. A lot of times sorcery is involved and I'm very cool with wizards. FYI, I especially appreciate wizardry that incorporates baseball so I would be thrilled if Joe Maddon could cast a spell on the Dodgers bats, turning them into papier mâché from wood. Also, I like when clubs have Wizar

Hello, I am the Baseball Milquetoast and I am a San Francisco Giants fan whose World Series championship dream has been crushed at the hands of Joe Maddon for a second time. His first transgression was that he was the bench coach for the 2002 Anaheim Angels who defeated the Giants and I'm pretty sure his strategies enabled that stupid Rally Monkey. Maddon spent 31 years as a player, coach and manager within the California/Arbitrary SoCal City Name Angels organization and this celebration in 2002 was easily one of the greatest highlights of his tenure. Maddon is now the manager of the Chicago Cubs and his second wrongdoing toward San Francisco came last Tuesday night when the Cubs rallied from a 5-2 deficit to defeat the Giants thus advancing to the NLCS. The wound is too fresh to bear the thought of  sharing a photo of this recent iniquity but for this one you can do an image search without my help. I am however happy to share a photo of a young Joe Maddon when he

I was considering writing about a cap of a minor league affiliate of one of the teams currently in postseason contention but I decided to write about the Oakland Athletics' Triple-A affiliate instead.  The main reason I chose the Nashville Sounds for this week's post is a good friend of mine from Nashville is getting married in Music City this weekend and unfortunately I cannot be there.  Kind of impossible to deny the awesomeness of the f-hole style "N" over a guitar pick. Standard inside tags and panel taping but I figured I'd offer a glimpse in any case. I've written about a few Sounds hats over the years but this newest version of the cap logo might be my favorite yet. It was designed by Brandiose who you know by now is widely recognized as the clear leader in minor league brand architecture.  Made in U.S.A. guarantee. Here's hoping New Era continues to make efforts to produce some of their caps in the States.

Ever since I began writing about my hats on this blog, I had not ever featured a college sports team before today. Well the streak is now ending because today is "Spirit Day" at work. As most will be showing their "team colors" in the office, I will be representing the University of Colorado by wearing this vintage hat that is over twenty years old! Behold the greatness of Black and Gold. I realize that this cap is not on brand with the official  logomark  and its  color  guidelines of my alma matter but I can't help being nostalgic. This cap has the pre-1994 "New Era" and size tags and the panel lining is very similar to this   San Jose Giants cap . Like the  aforementioned SJ Giants cap  you'll notice the green underbrim—albeit more squarish than the Giants cap. Also, while 1994 was the first year all MLB teams switched over to the grey underbrims, it's doubtful that this rule applied at the collegiate and minor league levels. If you are br

One of my favorite parts of this pseudo-weekly communiqué is to tie in some sort of significance to each week's featured hat with a place, thing, event or feeling that I'm experiencing. It's usually something as simple as trying to write about a hat from a city that's been featured in recent news or even one that I'm getting ready to visit.  I was shocked—as I'm sure most other New Yorkers were—by the New York and New Jersey bombings  and I was deeply saddened by Tuesday's fatal police shooting of Keith LaMont Scott .  As I was trying to decide on this week's hat, I wanted to incorporate one with a connection to one of these recent tumultuous events as a way to honor those affected. I don't have a Charlotte Knights hat (yet) and there wasn't a New York hat that I wanted to write about so I looked through my collection for one pertaining to either one of those cities. I was about to give up and write about another Asheville Tourists hat whe