Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

Welcome to the second consecutive Fresh Fitted Friday of the new year, folks! For those counting at home, today's entry makes me 2-for-2 for posts in 2021 which, in my opinion, is quite the way to start off the year. Last week's post was a bit subdued so I hope your tolerance for braggadocio is high because I've got some big news to boast about: this here blog will be celebrating its tenth anniversary this coming August! A decade is a long time to be consistently doing the same thing. I suppose the blog's longevity can be attributed to a few different components with the first being that I own an absurd amount of hats. More importantly, I enjoy writing about them and I'm glad to have this fun hobby on top of a hobby that's already loads of fun for me. While thinking about this milestone a bit this week, I revisited all of my posts going back to the beginning and noticed that I’d never once written about an NFL team's hat. To be fair, that isn't surprisin

"Death to 2020" is a battle cry I expect to hear for years to come so I suppose it's only fitting to chose this 1880 Tombstone Tigers retro cap as the one to bury the most miserable year that anyone would ever care to remember. In lieu of doing up a typical end-of-year sendup, I'll simply offer a reminder that each of you readers out there is in control of your destiny in this coming year and that I'm looking forward to sharing some insightful posts with y'all just as soon as we put the terrible monster known as "2020" to bed! Nevertheless, if  any of y'all were so inclined to research the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral and the the town's significance to the baseball team therein, I'll kindly leave it to you now! One last note: I've never made a secret of my affinity for Ebbets Field Flannels over the years so I take great pride in saying on the first day of this near year that I sincerely hope they continue to produce a steady stream of

Season's greetings, folks! I hope y'all didn't think I'd just leave you high and dry with no post today just because it's Christmas. And in 2020 of all years? I actually considered skipping this week but then I remembered next Friday is New Year's Eve so what would stop me from wanting to take a break then too? Well, luckily for everyone who cares, I just happen to have the perfect caps for this week and the next so here we go! This "Slide Sox" cap is a Hat Club exclusive and it definitely exudes yuletide vibes. The slides are a staple of holiday season loungewear and the stockings evoke fond Christmas memories for so many of us. I like the dark green undervisor here for this cap rather than kelly green. Either shade combines nicely with the red and white on the logo and thus completing the Christmas theme however. This year was a hard one for everyone and I hope what I'm about to say doesn't sound crazy but I'm really thankful for companie

Welcome back folks! I’m happy to report I’ll be picking up this week right where we left off before the break as I’ve got yet another classic, yet now-defunct, Eastern League relic for this week’s Fresh Fitted Friday post. It’s been five years since my New Britain Rock Cats snapback blog post and unsurprisingly the logo on this fitted version of the cap seems just as wacky to me now as it ever has! The lack of an embroidered New Era flag on the outside of the cap tells me this cap is definitely from before 1999 but we will need to look under the hood for the whole story. These New Era and MILB tags were last used in 1996 so it’s safe to say those tags are leftovers from those years and that this cap is actually from 1997 as that is when this particular size tag first appeared. A nice and flat MILB batterman is one of those small touches that I miss most from the caps of yesteryear. The Rock Cats logo has always been an enigma to me. On one hand I appreciate them adopting a fresh and

I've got a special post in store for you next week. See y'all then!

Something I had not considered before the Erie write-ups over the past few weeks was while the city is undoubtedly located in Pennsylvania, it is less than a half hour drive from the Ohio border. I then realized a good number of folks in that town might have as much reason to root for Cleveland teams as they would ones in Pennsylvania such as Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. That duality is  eerily (I'm so sorry that I can't help myself sometimes!) reminiscent to Toledo's situation where it is essentially part of Michigan however is  technically in Ohio. Something similar can be said of Cincinnati's teetering on the border of Kentucky but I really fell down the rabbit hold when I read this article about how the Ohio River defines the borders of five states . So I guess if you couldn't tell by now, I've really got Ohio on the brain so it's really handy that this week's Fresh Fitted Friday selection is an Akron Aeros hat. Shout out to the good people of Akro

Welcome to the third––and perhaps final––Keystone State Party post, folks! After neglecting to discuss the nautical components of last week's Erie SeaWolves logo design, I've decided to dive right into examining the maritime theme in this Erie Sailors retro cap from Ebbets Field Flannels that I've selected for this week's Fresh Fitted Friday post. Incorporating the baseball into the ship's wheel tie-in to Erie's deep naval history, especially when one considers Erie's role in the War of 1812, and more specifically the Battle of Lake Erie . In fact, the town's first known and recorded baseball team in 1906 was called the Erie Sailors. A cap that encapsulates the proud naval tradition of this fine nation deserves nothing less than Ebbets Field Flannel's "Made in U.S.A." construction. Their faithful reproductions and attention to detail in workmanship is what every cap maker should strive to emulate.  The shade of green featured on the underv