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Showing posts with the label Hickory Crawdads

Hickory Llamas (2019 Copa de la Diversión)

This week's Fresh Fitted Friday finds me once again barely able to contain my composure as my San Francisco Giants have lost their two-horse race with the New York Yankees in the Aaron Judge Sweepstakes. Since last week's post, Jacob DeGrom departed from the New York Mets to join the Texas Rangers while Justin Verlander signed with the Mets to help fill that void. This now leaves Carlos  Rodón as the lone pitching ace without a place to call home in 2023 and at this point, I'm rather disinterested in where he ends up as long as it's not the Los Angeles Dodgers. Luckily, this recent article from MLB Trade Rumors  linking  Rodón with the Texas Rangers has me feeling confident that my rivals in LA are not likely to sign him to a deal.  My voodoo powers were ineffective last week but that didn't stop me from selecting the cap worn by the Rangers' High-A affiliates in Hickory, NC for this week's post! Ever since 2019, the Hickory Crawdads have been known as the

1993 Hickory Crawdads - Fresh Fitted Friday!!!!

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

Hickory Crawdads vintage ballcap

In 1993, an instant classic was born for minor league ballcaps. While many might think that Conrad the Crawdad is a hokey mascot, I'm a complete supporter of this cap. Upon the team's relocation to Hickory from Gastonia, they changed their name from the Rangers to the Crawdads and thusly switched from being an affiliate of the Texas Rangers to the Chicago White Sox. The mid-1990's was a new golden era for the White Sox from a marketing perspective when you consider the wild success of this cap as well as the oft-photographed Michael Jordan during his stint with their Double-A affiliate, the Birmingham Barons. I can't say with any certainty that the Nashville Sounds or Vancouver Canadians made as much of a splash as the other two aforementioned teams but I wouldn't mind owning a cap from either one of those clubs. These days, the Crawdads are back to being an affiliate of the Texas Rangers but I'll always remember them as an affiliate of the White Sox. I'm