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Showing posts with the label Minnesota Twins

Mid-1990s Cedar Rapids Kernels, Fresh Fitted Friday!!!!

The great thing about being a cap collector is that laying eyes on fresh new logos is as exciting as the classics that got you into the hobby which will always resonate with you. That's why after all these years, the logo the  Cedar Rapids Kernels wore on their caps from 1993 - 2006 is as exciting to me now as always. The Cedar Rapids Reds became the Kernels when the Minnesota Twins became their parent club in 1993 and even though the logo doesn't have the cartoonistic Poochie Effect  that other teams began to employ in the mid-1990s, this cornball has a lot going for it. I've written DeLong caps in previous posts however only the ones I've identified as being from 1993 and beyond have featured the loose MILB tag so finding out the exact year it first appeared might need to be my next project. DeLong's calling card is the square brim which provides a slightly different result once these caps are broken in.  I put the "Favorites" label on this post as well

1993-94 Nashville Xpress - Fresh Fitted Friday!!!!

This week's Fresh Fitted Friday post marks the sixth time that I've written about a cap worn by a minor league team from Nashville,TN. That might seem rather trivial however I assure you it's not as all the other posts were of Nashville Sounds caps while this week's topic is the  Southern League's  Nashville Xpress, who only existed from 1993 through 1994. The first initial in my name is "N" so of course that and the music themed nature of the Sounds logos over the years leads me to appreciate their designs greatly. But in addition to being a big fan of music, I also love traveling by rail which is why I decided to feature this Nashville Xpress cap today in celebration of tomorrow being National Train Day. The inspiration behind the team name Xpress comes from the existence of train tracks just outside Herschel Greer Stadium which was the ballpark the team shared with their more established counterparts, the Sounds.  The New Era brand tag here looks like

1997 New Britain Rock Cats

Welcome back folks! I’m happy to report I’ll be picking up this week right where we left off before the break as I’ve got yet another classic, yet now-defunct, Eastern League relic for this week’s Fresh Fitted Friday post. It’s been five years since my New Britain Rock Cats snapback blog post and unsurprisingly the logo on this fitted version of the cap seems just as wacky to me now as it ever has! The lack of an embroidered New Era flag on the outside of the cap tells me this cap is definitely from before 1999 but we will need to look under the hood for the whole story. These New Era and MILB tags were last used in 1996 so it’s safe to say those tags are leftovers from those years and that this cap is actually from 1997 as that is when this particular size tag first appeared. A nice and flat MILB batterman is one of those small touches that I miss most from the caps of yesteryear. The Rock Cats logo has always been an enigma to me. On one hand I appreciate them adopting a fresh and

1993 Portland Beavers (Hat Club Retro) - Fresh Fitted Friday!!!!

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

1991-92 Portland Beavers (Hat Club Retro) - Fresh Fitted Friday!!!!

Welcome back to the post-Thanksgiving/pre-Christmas edition of Fresh Fitted Friday y'all.  You might (or might not!) be wondering where I have been the past few weeks and the answer to that is that I've been traveling to some pretty cool spots. I'd never been to  Charleston, SC before this past weekend and the one before that I visited Providence, RI for the first time in over twenty years so  in honor of that triumphant return, this week's Portland Beavers retro is one whose logo could easily be taken for a Providence cap. HatClub did a more than decent job with this retro but my only complaint would be that the little swoosh under the P should have been less tapered on the right side.  A benefit of the retro caps is that the black sweatband is better for longevity. Also, you can't see underneath the New Era tag but rest assured that it reads "Made in U.S.A." under there.  No batterman here which is historically accurate but I'm sti

Rochester Red Wings Road Cap

I thought about writing about another Buffalo Bisons hat this week but I don't think that will do much to alleviate my sadness regarding New Era closing its Derby plant. Instead I think I should focus on another legendary International League team from Western New York like the Rochester Red Wings. As I've mentioned before, my hometown team growing up was the Norfolk Tides and I got to see a lot of games against the Red Wings who were affiliated with the Baltimore Orioles during those years. Something interesting I just found out about Rochester is that the "Flour City" has been a charter member of the league since its earliest incarnation in 1886! Like all minor league teams in the late 19th century, the first Rochester squads were all independent clubs however another thing I learned recently is that moniker is likely derived from the fact that their first major league affiliation which was with the St. Louis Cardinals which lasted from 1929 through 1960 and exp

1990 Miami Miracle

5/11/2023 Update: So between this post from 2018 and now I've learned a lot more about the nuances of the caps in my collection and a very important example of this was brought to my attention by a  @xclickaroox  who I feel is a must-follow on Instagram. At any rate, this good sir and I recently completed a trade of some fun MILB caps and during our talks he alerted me to the fact that the the hat from this post from 3/23/2018 is actually a 1990 Miami Miracle cap. The key distinguishing factor here is that the undervisors on Fort Myers Miracle caps were grey while Miami's were green as is the case with the cap in this post. The other discrepancy is that the Fort Myers cap feature a TM on the logo while the Miami caps do not. At any rate, I love finding out new things about my caps so if anyone ever finds issues with what I've written, please reach out.  One last note for posterity's sake: I won't update the verbiage below because it would take a bit more effort than

Early 2000's Minnesota Twins Cap - Fresh Fitted Friday!

Welcome back to your regularly scheduled missives of a baseball milquetoast! The last few weeks of summer have been hectic for me but I'm ready for fall even if at this very moment my beloved San Francisco Giants are two games away from being eliminated from a wild card berth. But you know who's in the running for one of those berths in the AL? The Minnesota Twins! I've written about some Twins farm teams on here but never the big club. I figure now is as good a time to do that as any since they're currently playing decent baseball which is something they haven't done since 2010. That's not a fact but the way; it's just an opinion I came up with by looking at their record over the last few years! Coupling that opinion with the 3 World Series the Giants have won since 2010 is comforting but  let's get back to this cap because it intrigues me. The tags and satin taping are consistent with what I've seen on caps from 2002-2004 however I ha

2008 Fort Myers Miracle Cap - Fresh Fitted Friday!!!!

Firstly, many apologies for not posting last week. I should have been more forthcoming about that but as they say: "treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen." Aw shucks, y'all know I don't really believe that!  At any rate, with only a few weeks away left in the regular season it's finally setting in for me that David Ortiz's career of playing baseball will be ending as well. As a Giants fan, I'm still salty that he smooth-talked Pablo Sandoval into leaving San Francisco for Boston but then again, Pablo has been a terrible on the Red Sox and the Giants have been fine without him.  I guess one positive of Pablo playing in Boston is that I have more opportunities to heckle him when he comes to New York although it's easier to razz a player if they actually, you know, play . While I've never actively rooted for Big Papi, I respect him immensely and would never boo him. Also, he's huge and he could crush me if I upset him. A while back I de

2014 Cedar Rapids Kernels Road Cap - Fresh Fitted Friday!!!

It's said the longest day of the year is sometime between June 20-22 but for baseball fans, the longest week of the year is the week of the All-Star break. The mid-summer respite never comes as a surprise but four consecutive days without games disrupts my daily ritual of checking box scores and setting my fantasy roster. T hankfully, play recommences today. Since the All-Star Game didn't inspire me to write about a particular hat or team for this week's Fresh Fitted , I selected an unworn cap from the vault. Perhaps t he biggest reason for busting  out this Cedar Rapids Kernels cap is that one of my favorite non-baseball summertime activities is eating copious amounts of corn on the cob and I love that the logo combines both elements so well. If you can't tell what's going on here, let me fill you in. Inside that corn stalk is a smiling corn cob/baseball bat hybrid thing wearing a hat and he looks like he's taking a nap. Everything about him is perfect