Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

Even though this is only my sixth post in the last 14 weeks, this week's Fresh Fitted Friday selection breaks a consecutive streak of hats featuring orange and/or green. While this is not a significant piece of information for you to know, I like keeping track of tidbits like that so that I do not place undue emphasis on any one particular color or theme. One area where I do enjoy being consistent is using this blog to connect my hats with current events as well as my own personal experiences. I also enjoy relating fun holidays to caps I own such as this Lowell Spinners on-field in tribute to "National Flannel Day" by  weaving in its connection to the rich history of textile production of Lowell, Massachusetts.  I love how the baseball is incorporated into this logo so much it might actually be my all-time favorite cap worn by a Red Sox farm club. The New Era "Flag" design came about in 1997 which is the year I would say the other sweatband tags here were used.

The Vermont Expos hat I picked for this week's Fresh Fitted Friday post builds on last week's themes of Vermont, Phish and the Expos affiliates and its one that I do not anticipate seeing anyone else wearing around any time soon as it is part of a limited production run of "fantasy" caps from  @djmach716  of New Era shop in Buffalo, NY. Fantasy logos is breathe new life into classic designs and I'm excited for this being the first of such hats that I've picked up from DJ via an assist from my friend  @yellowsub73 . There's a few more that I'm looking to scoop up but of course just to be on safe side, I am holding off on specifying which ones until that moment that I have actually procured them. As a native Virginian, I tend to gravitate caps with logos featuring the letter "V" and even though I know this one is not for my home state. The only thing that I don't love here is the red stitching on the white panels but I've used my seam-

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

Shortly after publishing last week's Bangor Blue Ox post , I realized that I was in the midst of a nice little streak of featuring hats from Northeast cities whose name begin with the letter "B" (ie. Buffalo, NY and Bangor, ME) thus this Batavia Clippers retro cap from Ebbets Field Flannels seemed like a natural fit for this week's Fresh Fitted Friday selection.  Batavia's affiliation with the Philadelphia Phillies lasted from 1988-2006 and the team heavily leaned on their parent club when it came to uniform design for the first ten years of their arrangement, after which they rebranded as the Batavia Muckdogs. This permutation of the Phillies "P" into a "B" was only in use from 1991 and 1992 but because those were two prime years during the height of my early obsession with baseball, this logo is the first one that comes to mind whenever the Batavia Clippers are discussed. I cannot say enough good things about the quality Ebbets put forth on

Welcome to the third––and perhaps final––Keystone State Party post, folks! After neglecting to discuss the nautical components of last week's Erie SeaWolves logo design, I've decided to dive right into examining the maritime theme in this Erie Sailors retro cap from Ebbets Field Flannels that I've selected for this week's Fresh Fitted Friday post. Incorporating the baseball into the ship's wheel tie-in to Erie's deep naval history, especially when one considers Erie's role in the War of 1812, and more specifically the Battle of Lake Erie . In fact, the town's first known and recorded baseball team in 1906 was called the Erie Sailors. A cap that encapsulates the proud naval tradition of this fine nation deserves nothing less than Ebbets Field Flannel's "Made in U.S.A." construction. Their faithful reproductions and attention to detail in workmanship is what every cap maker should strive to emulate.  The shade of green featured on the underv

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

If there's a personality trait every baseball fan should possess it has to be dynamism. Accepting the possibility of the 2020 baseball season never even beginning is sobering and I'm searching for coping mechanisms other than reminiscing on all the other times fans have been let down when it comes to the one-sided obsession we have with this game. Besides the strike-shortened season of 1994, I'm fortunate that the only adjustment I've had to make was the prior year. My hometown team, the Tidewater Tides, dropped the alliteration in their catchy team name in favor of acknowledging the City of Norfolk, which in all fairness was an overdue gesture as Norfolk had been hosting the team since 1969. The name change seemed like a big deal at the time but maybe that's because it also came with a change of scenery as the Tides left their well-worn  environs of Metropolitan Park and moved into brand new digs.  Harbor Park  still stands as home to the Tides currently and is

For those with a keen sense of foreshadowing, last week's Oneonta Tigers cap might have been a pretty good clue that I would be featuring the infamous Oneonta Yankees for  this week's Fresh Fitted Friday selection . A class-act logo like this deserves the retro treatment although I'd be hoping for true-to-original dimensions and flat embroidery. My sweet spot for sweatband tags (sweat spot?) has always been 1994 through 1996 and I'm so happy that a cap I've been on the hunt for all these years features that set of tags. I would have been ok if this cap didn't feature the MILB batterman but it's a nice touch on this one because at least no one would mistake it for a college team or one from any other sport for that matter. If you're a regular reader here you know that that the Oneonta Yankees hat is one that's been on my  Wish List  for a long time and I imagine that being the case for anyone who collected MILB cards in the 80

Wella-wella-wella-welcome Back! Thanks to everyone for your patience while I was on my hiatus. Just to fill y'all in, I had some wrist pain so I had to take a break from the blog to give myself time to recover. Hopefully you feel it was warranted. If not, stop beefin'! Only problem is now I'm feeling a little out of practice so how about we just view these next few posts as if they were Spring Training? Kidding aside, this minor setback really put things into perspective for me in terms of injuries, especially in sports.  Not being able to ride a bike for a month was challenging so I can't imagine what a big leaguer goes through with a similar injury. Then again, teams have a medically trained staff to handle this sort of thing so let's scrap that thought and I'll get back to writing about hats. As you might recall, my last post before the break was the Norwich Sea Unicorns of the New-York Penn League so for this week, I decided to feature an ancestral li