Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

I considered jumping back in to Pacific Coast League caps for this week's missive but last week's Australia/birthday post got me thinking that the early part of the year is the perfect time to jump into a new theme. And what better way to celebrate a new theme than by showcasing the cap of a brand new team for 2020? By my count this Norwich Sea Unicorns cap is the 19th unique Brandiose design that I've featured here but this one is extra special for a few reasons, the first being that my wife just gifted this to me for my birthday. The second big draw to this hat is that I have a keen appreciation of nautical themes, especially unicorns and goes double for narwhals! To be honest, I wish the team rebranded as the Norwich Narwals but alliteration be damned I suppose. In all fairness, I'm just happy that a Class Short Season team ponied up the money for a much-needed makeover. I haven't seen too many of the "Made in Bangladesh" caps so I'm hop

It's been just about a year since my last birthday post which means…it's time for another one! So, just like last year I'm shining the spotlight on Australia as we both bask in the glory that is January 26 however this time the cap worn by the  Australian National Team is from  the 2017 World Baseball Classic. Something I don't discuss much (but you probably already know all about) is the "Labels" section in the sidebar of the site pages is super helpful, especially if you'd like to peruse caps that share metadata with the current cap you're viewing. For example if you clicked on the "World Baseball Classic" label, you'll see the 2017 US National Team cap ! I know I made it easy for you by linking to the page just then but it's almost my birthday so I'm feeling super generous and helpful! At any rate, I hope you enjoy the photos of the cap worn by the 2017 National Team of my perhaps-someday home country of Australia!

Instead of counting down the days until pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training facilities as we normally would around this time of year, the baseball world has been consumed by the repercussions of the Houston Astros sign stealing scandal  and I've been doing my best to abstain from painting broad strokes with my judgement brush. But as a San Francisco Giants fan it's hard to stay silent, especially when the team I loathe most is mentioned as the potential beneficiary of an L.A. City Council plot to request the recall the of the 2017 and 2018 World Series trophie s. At first it made my blood boil but the more I think about how it would play out, the more hilarious that outcome seems. The "Total Recall" outcome is something that I'm not going to actively back or root against but if it ends up happening, trolling the Dodgers would almost become too easy as Giants fans would have more material to work with than we ever had before. As I mentioned earli

Hello and Happy New Year to anyone reading today's post! And if you're reading this entry in March, I suppose it would be rude of me not to offer you the same courtesy.  I want to start the year off with a bang but also want to honor my 2019 mission of chronicling the Pacific Coast League hats in my collection that I felt were ready for the spotlight. So instead of coming out guns blazing, I'm going to kind of just kill y'all softly with a few caps from teams in the American conference of the PCL, starting with this Iowa Cubs hat from 2004. This cap logo has been in steady use since it was introduced in 1988 however it's used more sparingly these days since it was designated as the team's road cap in 2006, which is also when the "I-Cubs" home cap debuted. The first clue that this cap is from 2004 is this MILB tag came about that year (ok,  maybe 2003) and was only in use for a brief time afterwards. Because the sweatband tags are of th

But I'll see you back here next week!

Seeing as how this is the last missive of the year, it only seems right to expect a blow-out post although I fear only I will see it as such. Then again, I'm the one writing this dang blog every week so cut me some slack, Jack! I often refer to my baseball fandom reaching its fever pitch in the late 1980's and early 1990's but just in case you need a reminder, some of the hat logos that are specific to that era are my all-time favorites as is the case with this week's Colorado Springs Sky Sox cap. The interlocking "C" and "S" on this cap are something that I will always associate with Colorado Springs although it would be foolish to assume it hasn't been used elsewhere beforehand. The one instance that jumps to mind as a possibility is with the USC Trojans . The tags here are fairly straightfoward considering this cap could be from anywhere between 1988 and 1992. The only reason I'd say it's from the later side is because the MIL

I mentioned last week that my usual preference for these blog posts is to go vintage over retro but that I was so impressed with Hat Club's recent releases, I had no choice but to showcase their great work here. I spent some time going back through older posts to see if there were any consecutive ones featuring retro caps and I couldn't find any so as far as I know, this week's 1993 Portland Beavers goes back-to-back in that regard as well as on the Beavers tip! At first glance, this logo is pretty busy so you have to appreciate how Hat Club was so faithful to the OG. I especially like that the Beaver is wearing a Beavers hat. Very meta. Hat Club went with a grey underbrim here, however it's worth noting I've seen a green underbrim on the white version of the 1993 cap. The grey works though so I'm good with it. The sweatband tags are rarely of any importance on retro caps but I shared a photo of this one because you can see the Made In U.S.A. is