Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

Roberto Clemente Day was celebrated across Major League Baseball games earlier this week on September 15 and while I have previously honored the date with a post just three years ago ,  this year's tribute aligns with International Talk Like a Pirate Day which happens to be today! I like the svelt "P" here about as much as the overblown version that the team wears now and think it would be neat to see them wear this version every now again. I've posted Roman caps only twice before however one was a fitted with a leather band and the other had a white sweatband was a snapback  which makes this one the first of its kind featured here! I love the kelly green on this undervisor and am looking forward to seeing how it ages as the cap gets even more age on it. I don't have much to add in terms of thoughts on this cap but perhaps that is for the best as it allows us to reflect on Clemente's legacy and how his impact will continue to be felt as the years go by. The n...

I have been holding onto this Savannah Bananas cap for a few years now and am finally featuring it as this week's Fresh Fitted Friday selection as I am finally be attending my first-ever Banana Ball game at Yankee Stadium this coming Sunday!  The all-blue cap might be the main one worn on-field by Savannah, but I love the way the yellow pops on the white crown on this alternate more than any other cap that was available at my time of purchase. It's also worth mentioning that was before they sold a New Era version, which reverses the blue visor and yellow rear from this hat.   Not a crazy fan of the tonal visor and undervisor, but all in all, this is a great cap that I cannot wait to finally wear out in the wild on Sunday at Yankee Stadium. My first-ever cap from Zephyr Headwear just had to be a Savannah Bananas hat, didn't it?!? I have been following along the Bananas' inspiring journey since their inaugural season in the Coastal Plain League in 2016, as they filled the...

Ahead of the Modesto Nuts final homestand, I have finally procured my first ever Nuts cap as I stated that I hoped I would do this year back in my  San Bernardino Spirit post   from December 20, 2024. As I mentioned in that post, Modesto has fielded a team for almost 80 years so closing out the California League's season with this cap seems like a fitting tribute. This logo is not the first one that comes to mind when minor league fans first think of the team but it has made its fair share of appearances over the past 20 years of their existence and it plays a fine straight man to the wild embroidery design of the side patch. I had a hard time trying to decide if I wanted a cap featuring Al Almond or Wally Walnut so thankfully Topperzstoreusa came through in the clutch by featuring both on the embroidery. It is done up in a metallic style that is not easy to read however if you are familiar with the team's designs it's fairly obvious. The embroidery is so massive the hat is...

The big conversation topic in the baseball world this week was spawned by comments made by Commissioner Rob Manfred in an interview during the fourth inning of the 2025 MLB Little League Classic this past Sunday. In that segment he discussed his support for expansion and a geographic realignment which has not happened since the strike-shortened 1994 season . The last time MLB introduced new teams was in 1998 when the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays (now Tampa Bay Rays) joined the National and American Leagues, respectively. The next expansion clubs, however, might not even be part of either "league" in the current sense if the realignment reorganizes each circuit into geographical conferences. The first thing to sort is which cities get teams and I am glad Portland has finally emerged as a frontrunner for one on the West Coast. Their presence brings us closer to my favorite period in baseball history: the heyday of the Pacific Coast League (PCL), which effective...

I might have just written about a Seattle Mariners affiliate just a few weeks ago but I had no choice but to feature yet another link to the M's this time as earlier this week some good friends recently shared photos of the whole family enjoying an Everett AquaSox game and a video of birthday girl throwing out the first pitch that night!  In addition to celebrating my friends' Northwest journey, this post joins that recent Riverside Pilots hat  with last week's San Jose Giants cap  as I' ve  written about the AquaSox before  but also shown love to that city in other posts  as the  Everett Giants  played in the Northwest League from 1984-94. Lastly , the Bellingham Giants ( 1995–1996)  and Bellingham Mariners ( 1977–1994) are another Northwest League link between the Giants and Mariners, respectively. Earlier I mentioned my other AquaSox hat with this being the third and final on-field logo left to feature here. The zaniness of this batting...

This post marks the second week in a row that I have brought out an Ebbets Field Flannels retro but the wool serge fabric and a stiff crown on this retro of the hat logo the San Jose Giants wore for one year only in 1989 is far less common than the wool broadcloth found on the majority of the Ebbets caps. Something this esoteric and awe-inspiring could only have come from ballcap aficionado Paul Carr of The Ballcap Blog who is a native of San Jose and is the force behind the 1986 San Jose Bees retro  that I have wrote about here just a few years ago. I met Paul many years ago and other than our shared love of hats, I was glad to hear we are both really into music as well. We're both into a variety of music and last I checked his favorite band is Green Day who hail from the East Bay. I have been a big fan of theirs since I was a teenager in the mid-1990s but the Bay Area band that I dig the most is the Grateful Dead which I have a sneaking suspicion is not a band that most Green Da...