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2015-18 Nashville Sounds Road Hat

The Pacific Coast League theme continues this week as another Tennessee team worth a look is the Nashville Sounds. Sadly, their road cap has just hit the road itself after the 2018 season as  the Sounds rebranded once again leading up to the beginning of their affiliation with the Texas Rangers the following season. I'm not sure  why the Sounds would abandon such an amazing logo, especially after such a brief time. It's also hard to believe that it's been a little over three years since  the home cap was featured on the site ! Unfortunately this is a "Made in China" cap and it definitely feels stiffer and boxier than other caps. It also feels like it's a size or two bigger than 7 3/8 but I suppose that's the risk you take buying New Era caps nowadays. Another thing that's hard to say goodbye to is the "Bred" (black and red) MILB batterman as the newest Sounds caps are dark navy, which I find to be interesting because they certainl

2007 Memphis Redbirds - Fresh Fitted Friday!!!!

As I sit here writing this week's post on All Hallow's Eve, I'm contemplating how superstitious I can be when it comes to baseball. It's an unwritten rule that you don't acknowledge a no-hitter as it's happening and I think that factored in me not discussing my desire for the Washington Nationals to win the World Series in last week's post.  I realize that sounds like I sincerely believed some form of Murphy's Law would occur but I think it had more to do with the fact that a t that point, the Nationals had won two games against the Astros and I didn't want to pile on too much since they were coasting along. I also didn't want to rub any salt in the wounds of my Yankees Empire friends! My only horse in the American League was the Yankees so once my current hometown team was eliminated, I simply hitched my wagon to the Nationals. On the topic of wagons, here's an article on John Loughney, who is better known as the "Since Today"

Pro-Line Chattanooga Lookouts - Fresh Fitted Friday!!!!

Ok, that's it. I don't have any more Southern League teams to write about (for now) and that's probably a good thing because I'm feeling some mild accomplishment that with this week's Chattanooga Lookouts cap, I have now written about eight of the ten teams in the league! From 1988 through 2008, the Cincinnati Reds had their Double-A affiliate in Chattanooga and after a ten year absence is back in Nooga as of the 2019 season. Once thing about Lookouts fans is they have to be good spellers as there are some real some doozies: Chattanooga, Cincinnati, Tennessee. Thank godnes for spelcheck. I haven't featured a Pro-Line cap here for a while so it's good to have one again for this week's post. Unfortunately, sweatband tags for this producer did not vary much throughout the 1990's so it's next to impossible for me to determine which year this cap is from. Ah, the parent team embroidered on the back of the cap. I remember thinking that wa

1989-90 Columbus Mudcats

Regular readers of this blog know that I like to get topical on here and while that can  potentially  lead to posts seeming to be dated down the line, I still enjoy the correlation between hats and certain current events and holidays.  That being said, I am surprised that for last week's post I didn't think to write about a team from a city named Columbus as we were l eading into Columbus Day weekend. Thankfully we aren't too many days removed from the actual holiday so it still feels timely to feature this Columbus Catfish hat for this week's post. It might seem tame compared to today's current MILB caps but this  Mudcats logo —a long with the Durham Bulls cap—helped usher in MILB caps into the mainstream consciousness. This New Era tag is commonly seen on snapbacks from the late 1980's and early 1990's. The lack of the MILB batterman solidifies the theory that this cap is not from the mid-1990's at all. The squarish brim and plain

1999 Knoxville Smokies Snapback

It was hard for me not to have a proper Southern League hat for last week's Fresh Fitted Friday, so I'm fully energized this week to be able to share this 1999 Knoxville Smokies hat with you this time around. I have to admit when this logo came out in 1993, I didn't think anything was special about it besides the fact that bonafide prospects like Carlos Delgado and Shawn Green wore the cap that season. My best guess is that this cap is from 1999 as that is the year that the New Era flag began appearing on the side of MILB caps as well as the fact that the white taping and sweatband tags are identical to this 1 999 Capital City Bombers cap . Here's a flipped-up view where if you zoom in you'll see the modernized, yet tonal, New Era branding on the adjustable snap itself. Even though this is a snapback, I feel fortunate to have snagged this cap as it's not one that seems to come around as often as one would think. Another reason my guess is that th

1968 Jacksonville Suns Ebbets Field Flannels Retro - Fresh Fitted Friday!!!

Last week I mentioned I was running low on Southern League caps so it's no surprise that I'm stretching a bit for this week's Fresh Fitted Friday . As you probably know, most of my posts are on-field caps, but  this week's Jacksonville Suns cap is a replica of the cap worn in 1968, which to make things worse is when they competed in the International League. I dig how the "J" here looks super laid back, like it could almost be a "G" and the more I think about it, this "J" is just a metaphor for a super laid back Florida guy. The Made In USA tag is proudly on display here and with good reason. Ebbets Field Flannels might not produce all of the cap logos that I wish they would, but the ones they do release are of utmost quality. I don't write about Ebbets hats much but I just want to note how I appreciate how the black sweatband doesn't show signs of wear and the green underbrim slowly gets darker over time which is fun to

1999-2001 Birmingham Barons Cap - Fresh Fitted Friday!!!!

I'd love to continue celebrating the Southern League, but it seems that after writing about five of the ten current teams, I've run out of caps to write about! Because of this, I've decided to share some images of a more recent—but still vintage—Birmingham Barons cap than the 1993-94 Barons cap that I wrote about almost two years ago. The Barons have sported an Old English "B" as their cap logo in every image I can find going back to 1981, which is when the Montgomery Rebels franchise was moved to Birmingham to become the Barons. The tags here are the classic 1999-2001 configuration featuring "The Nations Highest Quality Fitted Cap" text along the satin taping and of course, back during those years that statement was true. Nowadays, New Era caps aren't so much the best thing ever but I digress. Nothing but respect for the silver and black batterman here. Sometimes I wonder if the Barons logo is as ubiquitous as I believe it to be. Of