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1993 Waterloo Diamonds

I hope everyone enjoyed the South Atlantic League caps over the last few months but if the volume of posts was too much, that's ok too because I have a more streamlined set of caps on deck for the Midwest League series, which starts off this week with a Waterloo Diamonds snapback from 1993. For their inaugural season in 1989, the Diamonds were a co-op team (aka baseball's version of polyamory) featuring players from the Baltimore Orioles and the San Diego Padres but they were going steady with the Padres  from 1990 through their final season in 1993 . The Waterloo Diamonds were only a team for five years in total and the fact that they  only wore this cap logo for their last two seasons makes it super unique to me. I think a lot of other hat nerds feel the same way because when  Hat Club recently did a retro release, the cap sold out rather quickly and I wouldn't be surprised to see it return sometime soon. The logo is comically large but you would only kn

1994-96 Fayetteville Generals - Fresh Fitted Friday!!!!

Something I enjoy doing with this blog is reflecting on previous posts while working on new ones. This week's Fayetteville Generals cap not only harks back to a  Generals snapback that I wrote about just over two years ago  but it also relates to the  Lakewood BlueClaws  which was the first team featured in this run of South Atlantic League caps. What I appreciate most about the Generals logo is that it pays tribute to a legendary figure of the American Revolutionary War from France named Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de Lafayette, or as he's more commonly known, Marquis de Lafayette.   Not only is the team's name derived from his role as a major general of American forces in the war but the city of Fayetteville, NC is also named in Lafayette's honor. I should have mentioned this information when I wrote about the Generals snapback in 2017 but I'm glad to be able to right this wrong now.  One wrong that can't be righted

1983-88 Asheville Tourists

The South Atlantic League celebraish officially "goes to 11" today and I think I'll be wrapping up the series next week as I'm sure everyone is about ready for a new topic. Until then, let's talk about this sweet 1980s Asheville Tourists cap which is all about simplicity —while perhaps even teetering on the edge of basic—  although is a classic nonetheless. A cursory glance of Tourists cards from 1986 and 1987 shows players wearing hats with this week's logo and on a royal blue crown, albeit with a grey underbrim, unlike this week's cap. The navy crown seen on  this  1989-93 Asheville Tourists hat  I wrote about just a little over two years ago proves this cap is from no later than  1988. I had troubling finding Asheville Tourists baseball cards from 1981 through 1985 so I can't say with certainty  the earliest year this cap could be from . The closest thing I could find is this image of former Houston Astros pitcher Charlie Ke

2014 Asheville Tourists Alternate by The Clink Room - Fresh Fitted Friday!!!!

I can't recall when I first saw a cap that was designed by Brandiose but I'm guessing it was the current Asheville Tourists home cap that I picked up in 2014. I think until then I was more into collecting vintage caps but once I acquired my most sought-after logos, I was better equipped to appreciate the recent designs that had come onto the scene. We have seen a great many Asheville Tourists alternates ever since their Brandiose rebrand was pushed live in 2011 but I believe this week's "White-Navy-Light Blue" colorway was done as a custom rather than an on-field. The starry night motif really pops on top of the white panels but I also think the blue stitching along the edges of those panels pops but in a distracting way. This is definitely the oldest cap I've seen with that contrasting stitching so it might be all that nonsense started in 2014. I've got more Asheville caps than any other team but this is my only one with the craftsman-

1993 Hickory Crawdads - Fresh Fitted Friday!!!!

Do you ever hear a recording of your voice and think to yourself, "there's no way that's me" even though you are 100% certain that the voice is in fact yours? Well, I just had that feeling when I went back and read my blog post for a Hickory Crawdads cap back in 2011 . It was only the fourth hat that I had written about and I suppose I don't recognize myself because it feels like I've learned so much about the history of MILB caps over the last eight years. Frankly, it was somewhat liberating to just be writing about a newly acquired cap that I appreciated simply because it reminded me of my youth. Even though the photography in that post is very cringeworthy and the text at the end of the post is mysteriously cut off mid-sentence, I remember being happy that I was  reacquainting myself with the Hickory Crawdads and I'm experiencing similar emotions as I'm revisiting an earlier version of that cap for this week's post. One thing I

Baseball Milquetoast's Wish List

Dear reader, I feel that now is the time to dedicate a post with photos and descriptions of the caps in my continually evolving "Wish List". I haven't exactly been bombarded with trade offers lately so maybe having them all featured here might change that.  Hat Club has been killing it with their recent releases of retro MILB logos from the 1980's and 1990's so  the first few caps on this list are ones that they'd do well to release (or re-release in the case of the 1993-95 Utica Blue Sox, 1995-2000 Kissimmee Cobras and the 1994 Appleton Foxes). Tier 1, as the name would imply, includes caps that are at the top of my list and I'd be willing to part with any cap in my Trading Block for one of these beauties: 1982-83 Denver Bears (I have a retro of this but would LOVE to have a vintage as well!) 1989-92 Peninsula Pilots 1988-90 Jackson Mets 1983 Portland Beavers (I've never even seen a vintage version of this cap which is why I had to include a image o