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Showing posts with the label 1989

1989 World Series - Oakland Athletics “Battle of the Bay”

Throughout this blog's history, my pettiness as a San Francisco Giants fan has led me to systematically avoiding write-ups of caps worn by my team's rivals. While there have been less than a handful of Los Angeles Dodgers posts over the years, this week’s post is my first time ever featuring an Oakland Athletics cap as a Fresh Fitted Friday selection. In my defense, the previously featured Dodgers caps were (objectively speaking) absolute bangers that I mostly posted in hopes of finding a trade partner. And today my justification for breaking the A’s streak is January 12 being “Kiss a Ginger Day” which left me choice but to pay tribute to Mark McGwire who is indisputably the All-Time Mack Daddy of Baseball Gingers. Owning an item commemorating 1989’s “Battle of the Bay” is obviously not something I would ever own personally but that did not stop me from scooping up this beauty as a gift to a friend who is an A’s fan. The 1989 World Series patch brings about some mixed emotion

1989-92 Elmira Pioneers

I’m back on a vintage kick for this week’s Fresh Fitted Friday post which is inspired by today, March 11, being Johnny Appleseed Day. The obvious logo to showcase on this holiday would be the home cap that the Fort Wayne TinCaps have worn since their inaugural season in 2009 however I decided to go in a different direction this time around. Just for some background, the TinCaps logo features an angry apple wearing a cooking pot as a reference to Johnny Appleseed who for some reason wore one on his head as well. I’ve always thought the design was fun but held out on acquiring one for the collection because I was hoping there would one day be a version that incorporated a baseball or bat into the motif. Well, here we are all these years later on Johnny Appleseed Day and I don’t have the one cap that was inspired by this great American nurseryman pioneer! Nevertheless, I won’t let that sink my spirits because I recently got my hands on an Elmira Pioneers cap from the Boston Red Sox era th

1987-90 Chicago White Sox

I'm finally taking a break from the "National Day" theme for this week's Fresh Fitted Friday selection because for the first time in a long while I've got some baseball-related current events that correspond with hats in my collection that I need to tell you good folks about! The Chicago White Sox clinched the American League East on Thursday night ea rlier this week which is exciting as this is their first postseason appearance since they faced the Tampa Bay Rays in the League Division Series in 2008. The White Sox were my AL team growing up and I'm all in on cheering for them as they are set to face the Houston Astros in the LDS. My affection for the White Sox without a doubt began –see what I'm doing here?– when Frank Thomas started putting up big numbers in 1991 which in turn led me to collecting as many baseball cards as possible of my new favorite player. The cards featuring Thomas in his Auburn University uniform were cool but the ones that are tru

1988-92 Buffalo Bisons - Fresh Fitted Friday!!!!

I hope y'all had fun these past few weeks with the NFL hats but unfortunately, my well of Buffalo Bills caps has run dry. Rushing out to buy more caps for this week's Fresh Fitted Friday isn't an option which means it's the perfect time to dig into my reserves for a vintage Buffalo Bisons cap that I estimate to have been worn between 1988 and 1992. The period during which this cap logo was worn represents a generally happy time for all three of Buffalo's main sports clubs but especially for the city's football team as the Bills' 12-4 record was good enough to put them at the top of their division for the first time in almost a decade.   Approximating years to sweatband tags on caps this old can be a chore but thanks to the handy reference by Paul Carr on The Ballcap Blog , it's a cinch. From there I was able to confirm this particular New Era tag and the "LOT/PRICE" size tag were used in 1988 and 1989! The mesh on this cap is unbelievably fres

1988-92 Colorado Springs SkySox

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

1989-90 Columbus Mudcats

Regular readers of this blog know that I like to get topical on here and while that can  potentially  lead to posts seeming to be dated down the line, I still enjoy the correlation between hats and certain current events and holidays.  That being said, I am surprised that for last week's post I didn't think to write about a team from a city named Columbus as we were l eading into Columbus Day weekend. Thankfully we aren't too many days removed from the actual holiday so it still feels timely to feature this Columbus Catfish hat for this week's post. It might seem tame compared to today's current MILB caps but this  Mudcats logo —a long with the Durham Bulls cap—helped usher in MILB caps into the mainstream consciousness. This New Era tag is commonly seen on snapbacks from the late 1980's and early 1990's. The lack of the MILB batterman solidifies the theory that this cap is not from the mid-1990's at all. The squarish brim and plain

1989-1992 Hagerstown Suns

Welcome to the second installment of Maryland-fest, hon! Last week's Hagerstown Suns hat shone brightly but week's iteration of the cap is super-rare as it is the one  worn when the team served as Baltimore's Double-A farm in the Eastern League from 1989 to 1992. Cursive script fonts have never been the go-to choice for cap logos but this is my favorite Hagerstown Suns logo because it was so short-lived and it reminds me of my days as a youngster collecting autographs. The classic MILB hat combination: a single New Era sweatband tag and a green underbrim. Perfection.  Some might say snapbacks don't have a place on Fresh Fitted Friday but remember not many Double-A teams wore fitted caps back in the day.  According to Baseball Reference, about half of the 1988 Single-A Suns played on the Double-A team for at least part of the 1989 season so while it might not have seemed like a big promotion at the time, I imagine the fans in Hagerstown all felt like

1989-93 Asheville Tourists Cap

Last week's Tucson Toros cap must have sparked something in me because I'm featuring a classic farm team that was once associated with the Houston Astros here  again this week . My intrigue with the Asheville Tourists began when I first became interested in minor league baseball in the early 1990's and the logo on the cap showcased today is from that time. If you've never seen this logo before, you'd never be able to guess it's an Asheville Tourists cap. I imagine most people will guess that it's a vintage Atlanta Braves hat, which in truth would not be a bad guess at all! The earliest example I can find of this typeface on a Tourists cap is from 1986 but the crown seems to be more of a royal blue. Also, I'm using this card from tradingcarddb.com mainly because the pitcher is showing bunt. This one is also from tradingcarddb.com and I'm showing it because it captures the 80's style racing stripes as well as the logo on a navy cro

1989-93 Tucson Toros Cap

The big news in the baseball world this past week was Team USA defeating Puerto Rico en route to its first ever World Baseball Classic championship. If you checked out last week's blog, you'd know that I wrote about a Team USA cap and while I'd love to take credit for this feat because I wrote about it, I must doff said cap to the players on that team.  I wanted to continue to try my luck and give a helpful boost to the University of Arizona during the NCAA tournament.  I decided the best way to do this is by writing about a Tucson Toros cap, as Tucson is home to the University of Arizona (which is also where my wife went to college) but sadly the Wildcats were eliminated from the tournament tonight. Despite the disheartening finish, my wife and her alma mater has lots to be proud of and on top of that, the Grand Canyon State has one more full week of Spring Training ahead of it!  Even though I made an active decision to take a break from wearing red hats for the next c