Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

As a general rule of thumb, I tend to keep the theme of these posts topical with current events, anniversaries of historical occurrences and the like however this Burlington Expos hat was selected as tribute to my favorite band, Phish, who originated in Burlington, Vermont. Tonight is the first of  7 consecutive shows that Phish will play at Madison Square Garden and as you can imagine, I'm thrilled about attending all of them however if you are reading this blog you are perhaps knowledgeable enough about minor league baseball to know that the Burlington where these Expos played is actually in the state of Iowa. According to my latest tally via Wikipedia , approximately half of the states in the US have a town, city or county named Burlington however the cities in Iowa and Vermont are actually connected in the sense that a native of the latter called John Gray chose the name Burlington for the former as a tribute to his hometown back east. I was thrilled to pick this cap up from Ha

The Baseball Hall of Fame Induction Weekend begins today  in Cooperstown and ends on Sunday when Fred McGriff and Scott Rolen are enshrined in the Class of 2023. As a San Francisco Giants fan, I have yet to see a Giant who I actively cheered for get inducted in my lifetime and our next best shot means waiting until Buster Posey appears on the 2027 ballot. Giants fans will just have to hate-watch the results starting with Chase Utley who makes his  BBWAA  ballot debut next year. This will be especially poignant considering 2023 was Jeff Kent's last year on that ballot. Kent was a notoriously bad fielder so despite  outslugging Utley in almost every offensive category,  comparing the two second basemen is futile. Both played for 16 seasons but the writers will likely vote Utley in based on some combination of his superb defensive metrics and his solid offensive numbers while Kent was discarded from the ballot because his defensive capabilities left so much to be desired. Personally,

I have written about many cities who have hosted teams for mulitple decades but today's Clearwater Threshers hat marks the first time that I've featured this longtime Philadelphia Phillies farm club, which has been their Single-A affiliate in the Florida State League since 1985. I alluded to wanting a Threshers cap in my Rancho Cucamonga Temblores post  in September 2020 but I made sure not to specify which one exactly because I knew even back then how special this cap was. I wasn't about to ruin my chances at getting it by blabbing about it then but now that I actually it own the time is right to spread the word! It is surprising how much I like this cap because despite being hopelessly anamored with the ocean, I am irrationally averse to sharks. I grew up up near a beach and remember the terror I felt when while swimming in the ocean I would randomly think of the tiny possibility of that a shark was nearby. Well, today is Shark Awareness Day so I figure it is time to face

I am not sure if I have mentioned this enough before but a big reason why I have this blog is to perform a sort of weekly check-in with myself and baseball. Writing and baseball have been grounding forces in my life so it only makes sense for me to use these posts as a way to connect all of my random thoughts with the game and the hats I wear everyday. My first hat-related posts here were mostly part of a spurt in output during August 2011, followed by a short hiatus until my  1992 Seattle Mariners cap post from August 2013 . From that point until now I've strived to be consistent in my write-ups with the goal of attracting and retaining a good amount of eyeballs as well as for that trend to continue! It's no coincidence that 2013 has great significance for me as that was the year I met my now-wife, who is ever-supportive of my writing. She lets me know when my collecting gets out of hand but also entertains frequent quips such as "ain't it neat I brought up the 1992 M

I've been making my best efforts to post every week throughout this current baseball season but last week was simply too hectic for me to get it together to do the Nashville-themed post which I hoped to do as a tribute to June Carter Cash who if still alive would be celebrating her 94th birthday that day. My goal for this week's write-up of this Nashville Stars cap is that it makes up for that lapse! Music City Baseball, LLC (“MCB”) is the name of the collective that aims to bring Major League Baseball to Nashville. The group has selected "Stars" as the eventual team's name in honor of the barnstorming team based in Nashville from the late 1930s through the early 1950s. MCB partnered with Ebbets Field Flannels (or, "EFF", for those with a penchant for acronyms) in creating caps to drum up excitement for Nashville's chase of their white whale, which for many years now has been to host an MLB team. There's not a lot of information out there on the

For the second week in a row I'm featuring a Favorites cap from my collection and before you start thinking "every cap is my favorite" I want to mention  the reason for posting this cap the Norfolk Tides wore from 1993-2015 today is because International Surfing Day is held annually on the third Saturday in June which happens to be tomorrow, June 17th. Until the team rebranded in 2016, the "wavy T" logo was the main cap logo worn by the Tides since 1993 which was their inaugural season at Harbor Park. The combination of a new uniform and ballpark undoubtedly ushered in a new  wave  of appreciation for the team. Luckily the "Made in China" tag is hiding underneath the sweatband here! The sky blue on the brim, button and batterman are a nice touch here but if we are being honest, they give off too much of a UNC vibe for my taste. Earlier I mentioned how the "new look" Tides of 1993 reinvigorated the team and I imagine after wearing this cap fo

The great thing about being a cap collector is that laying eyes on fresh new logos is as exciting as the classics that got you into the hobby which will always resonate with you. That's why after all these years, the logo the  Cedar Rapids Kernels wore on their caps from 1993 - 2006 is as exciting to me now as always. The Cedar Rapids Reds became the Kernels when the Minnesota Twins became their parent club in 1993 and even though the logo doesn't have the cartoonistic Poochie Effect  that other teams began to employ in the mid-1990s, this cornball has a lot going for it. I've written DeLong caps in previous posts however only the ones I've identified as being from 1993 and beyond have featured the loose MILB tag so finding out the exact year it first appeared might need to be my next project. DeLong's calling card is the square brim which provides a slightly different result once these caps are broken in.  I put the "Favorites" label on this post as well