Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

Folks, it's taking a lot in me to stop dwelling on the fact that yesterday was supposed to be MLB's Opening Day for the 2020 season. The reality is really starting to set in and to be honest, I'm not in a big mood to do big long blog post about it but I still feel the need to at least acknowledge the situation for posterity. To that point, I think it's only fitting that I end this good run of New York-Penn League caps with a super rare cap so without further ado, feast your hungry eyes on this Elmira Pioneers cap which was only worn for two seasons. I failed to mention this when I wrote about my other ( I know; I'm obnoxious) Elmira Pioneers cap but the team only sported this logo in 1993 and 1994 before they switched it up to a totally random cap logo . So sorry for the random Josh Booty photo if you clicked on the second link in the previous caption but he was the closest thing to a household name as it pertains to the Marlins incarnation of the Elmira P

I mentioned last week that my usual preference for these blog posts is to go vintage over retro but that I was so impressed with Hat Club's recent releases, I had no choice but to showcase their great work here. I spent some time going back through older posts to see if there were any consecutive ones featuring retro caps and I couldn't find any so as far as I know, this week's 1993 Portland Beavers goes back-to-back in that regard as well as on the Beavers tip! At first glance, this logo is pretty busy so you have to appreciate how Hat Club was so faithful to the OG. I especially like that the Beaver is wearing a Beavers hat. Very meta. Hat Club went with a grey underbrim here, however it's worth noting I've seen a green underbrim on the white version of the 1993 cap. The grey works though so I'm good with it. The sweatband tags are rarely of any importance on retro caps but I shared a photo of this one because you can see the Made In U.S.A. is

I hope everyone enjoyed the South Atlantic League caps over the last few months but if the volume of posts was too much, that's ok too because I have a more streamlined set of caps on deck for the Midwest League series, which starts off this week with a Waterloo Diamonds snapback from 1993. For their inaugural season in 1989, the Diamonds were a co-op team (aka baseball's version of polyamory) featuring players from the Baltimore Orioles and the San Diego Padres but they were going steady with the Padres  from 1990 through their final season in 1993 . The Waterloo Diamonds were only a team for five years in total and the fact that they  only wore this cap logo for their last two seasons makes it super unique to me. I think a lot of other hat nerds feel the same way because when  Hat Club recently did a retro release, the cap sold out rather quickly and I wouldn't be surprised to see it return sometime soon. The logo is comically large but you would only kn

Do you ever hear a recording of your voice and think to yourself, "there's no way that's me" even though you are 100% certain that the voice is in fact yours? Well, I just had that feeling when I went back and read my blog post for a Hickory Crawdads cap back in 2011 . It was only the fourth hat that I had written about and I suppose I don't recognize myself because it feels like I've learned so much about the history of MILB caps over the last eight years. Frankly, it was somewhat liberating to just be writing about a newly acquired cap that I appreciated simply because it reminded me of my youth. Even though the photography in that post is very cringeworthy and the text at the end of the post is mysteriously cut off mid-sentence, I remember being happy that I was  reacquainting myself with the Hickory Crawdads and I'm experiencing similar emotions as I'm revisiting an earlier version of that cap for this week's post. One thing I

I've probably mentioned this more than a few times already but my life-long love for baseball truly is something that's shaped the person I am today. F lipping through baseball cards as a child helped developed my knack for matching names with faces while poring over stats on the backs of those cards led to my o bsession with analyzing data.  As far as the subject matter in this blog, my appreciation for visual aesthetics in design is rooted in hours spent staring at logos on caps and uniforms of ballplayers while organizing my cards and watching games on television. My penchant for nostalgia is so blatant, it should't surprise you that my first hats are ones that resonate the deepest with me. My first MLB caps were the caps worn by the Chicago White Sox and Florida Marlins in the early 1990's and my first MILB caps were the New Haven Ravens, Greensboro Hornets and Prince William Cannons. Because the current theme here is the Carolina League, I've got not one, b

Has it really been almost four months since my last post? Of course that’s a rhetorical question but I still want to explain why I lapsed for so long. The quick answer is I’ve been preoccupied with other activities over the past few months however at some point during that time I should have posted a quick blurb about the hiatus but I kept getting distracted. I also lost interest in all things baseball as I saw my San Francisco Giants play terribly once again this year and now that the regular season has come to a close, I’ve decided to hate-watch the NLCS. For the second year in a row, the Los Angeles Dodgers are clear favorites to win the pennant but I’m going to be rooting for the Milwaukee Brewers in the series. This petty tactic is the reason why this week’s Fresh Fitted Friday selection is a Carolina Mudcats cap as they are the Class A affiliate of the Brewers in the Carolina League. How fortuitous that I just happened to have the tags still on this cap that's ov

If you follow  @baseballmilquetoast on Instagram —if not, please do so immediately— you'll know that on MLK Day I posted a photo of my Birmingham Black Barons cap to commemorate Dr. King's legacy and more specifically, his "Letter From Birmingham Jail" which was an open letter written while Dr. King was unjustly incarcerated.  While that hat has much historical significance, I also have an emotional connection with the Birmingham Barons of the Southern League as I associate that team with  Frank Thomas, who is  my all-time favorite baseball player. This card from 1990 shows Thomas wearing the Old English "B" cap logo lettering that the Barons had used since their reintroduction into the Southern League in 1981.  This is the photo used in Thomas' 1990 Best Card and I love that it's signed by the man himself. I don't collect autographs anymore but if I ever met Thomas I'd have to ask him for one. "The Big Hurt"