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2003 Buffalo Bisons Cap - Fresh Fitted Friday!!!

I've said it before but here it is again: it really has been too long since I've last posted. I hope y'all know how much I enjoy sharing these sweet glamour shots of my caps on here. If what they say is true and absence does in fact make the heart grow fonder then you will surely have no reason to turn away this week's featured cap: a Buffalo Bisons Snapback from 2003!

I dig this red "super-hero" style "B" on the cap. Also, the lighting may be a bit off in this shot but it's definitely a green cap! I don't mind the Christmas colorway one bit!
Very crisp representation of a New Era snapback from the early 2003's, complete with the squarish brim.
Sweatband tags and panel liner definitely fall in line with other New Era caps from 2003.

When I first got the idea to write about this cap (I'll get to that later), I thought the 
Buffalo Bisons were a more popular baseball team than they are. It turns out that there weren't gigabytes of images of players wearing caps from different years so that I could tell them apart. This meant that my barometer to distinguish what year a specific cap is from is something that I call the Jeremy Guthrie Litmus Test:


This photo is from 2003. I know this because the good folks at a fine publication known as The Buffalo News said so.

Last season Guthrie got to do something that little leaguers around the world dream of doing: pitch (and win) a game in the World Series. Even though the Kansas City Royals (thankfully) lost the series to the San Francisco Giants, Guthrie will always be a hero in Buffalo because he spent parts of four seasons there and small towns love it when their alumni make it to the big stage. 

I imagine that when he goes back to visit Buffalo (of course he goes back to visit Buffalo!) he gets carried around by a group of die-hard Buffalo sports fans who are part-time lumberjacks and probably smell like wing sauce. But Guthrie doesn't care about those things because he doesn't have to use his legs at all throughout his visit. 

Now it's time to get a little truth out there: out of all the different cap styles that the Bisons have used in their history, the one from the early 2000's is not my absolute favorite design. That might hurt some feelings over there at whatever B-grade ad firm the Bisons employed to come up with this logo, but it's the truth. 

The cap that I really love is the one that showed up the following season. It's pretty much the 2003 cap but with a baseball underneath that looks like it was hit with some sort of powerful bat that was possibly made out of lightning:



Sabathia is seen here unloading what probably ended up being a swing and miss pitch from the appendage that was once known as his left arm. Many thanks to MILB for providing this relic.


I didn't know this until just now but did you know that Guthrie and former Indians all-star C.C. Sabathia were teammates in 2006? In all fairness Sabathia only pitched one game for the Bisons but that still counts! You know who else was Guthrie's teammate as a Bison? This jolly guy:


Thanks again to MILB for digging up this fine photo!


So that photo was taken in 2007 when Cliff Lee was probably on a rehab assignment which is why Lee is wearing a different cap style than the one that I'm writing about today. Well, I hope you don't mind but I wanted to show a happy and smiley Lee which, by the way, is a different look than the scowl he sported when he and Guthrie were teammates in 2003:


That's one gruff looking dude and that cap is rough around the edges too!

All of this talk about Guthrie, Lee and Sabathia got me thinking about some sad stuff. Lee hasn't pitched all season and his future impact is a big question mark at this point. The two guys who aren't question marks are Guthrie and Sabathia. Those guys are just pure bad ballplayers who I never want to see pitch again ever.

Now I feel bad. I think that before I said such awful things about those two that I probably should have told you that I play fantasy baseball and that I'm not doing well this season. I'm attributing a big chunk of my failure to the fact that I had Guthrie and Sabathia on my roster during the seven-day span that each of those pitchers had the worst outings of their careers. 

Sabathia began my reeling streak on Saturday May 23 by giving up 6 earned runs in 2.1 innings of work against the Texas Ranger, which I witnessed in person at Yankee Stadium. I took that loss and chalked it up to me just pitching the wrong guy on the wrong day. Things got really bad for my fantasy team when Guthrie's Royals were visiting the Bronx two days later. Guthrie allowed 11 runs in 1 inning, which is becoming known as an outing that many are claiming was one of the worst starts in Major League Baseball history

Ok, I'm done complaining about my fantasy baseball team. I only mentioned these terrible occurrences because they were the impetus in my selection of the Buffalo Bisons as the team to spotlight this week! I really do feel bad for these pitchers, but on the bright side they're all still earning serious dough even though they are not performing at an optimal level. So I don't really feel that bad after all. 

Even though these pitchers are currently experiencing dark times, they've actually all thrown the ball really well throughout their careers. Well, Guthrie not so much but he's been decent at least. Sabathia and Lee were serious aces for a while but now they are getting the "brushed under the rug" treatment. 

I guess the saddest part about all of this is that all three of these guys got their start in the Cleveland Indians minor league system and not one has taken The Tribe to the World Series but each has made a trip to the Fall Classic with their current team. I'm sorry Indians fans but man, that must be a hard one to swallow. But hey, look on the bright side: at least you have Major League!


I've got an emotional connection with Buffalo Bisons caps and because it's a snapback, it's just my size so it is not going on the Trading Block but please don't hesitate to reach out if you want any other cap from that list and you are willing to part with any of the caps on my Wish List.

As always, thanks for coming back to read about minor league baseball hat geekery. I have comments disabled here so if you'd like to get in touch with me regarding a trade or just to chat about hats, feel free to reach out via the following social sites:

Twitter: @FittedFriday

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