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Showing posts with the label Seattle Mariners

1993-95 Riverside Pilots (2018 Hat Club Retro) - Fresh Fitted Friday!!!!

Last week was a celebration of all things hip-hop but at the end of the post, I mentioned how I began this blog's  Fresh Fitted Friday tradition with my 1992 Seattle Mariners post on August 16, 2013 . To that point, it only makes sense that ten years later I'm coming through with a Riverside Pilots retro which to me is undoubtedly one of the best Mariners affiliate logos ever. It's hard to believe it's already been a year since my  Wichita Aeros post celebrating National Aviation Day  and I am glad to showcase this Riverside Pilots hat to continue the tradition as this year the holiday falls tomorrow, August 19. Made in U.S.A. tags are a welcome treat here for sure as they become increasingly more rare by the year with whatever is floating around continues to get snatched up. The teal, navy and silver batterman looks great on a navy crown and especially here. I love all things 90s so of course the current colorway the Mariners have rocked since 1993 is near and dear to

1993-99 Jacksonville Suns (Hat Club retro)

Summer is almost in full swing in New York City and outside of the occasional 90º day, I'm happy to welcome it. The two main things I need to remember at all those fun hangs in the park is to stay hydrated and apply sunscreen, with the former being especially apt as "National Don't Fry Day" is recognized today as it is done each year on the  Friday before Memorial Day Weekend. Overexposure to the sun is something that too often goes unnoticed as we spend time relaxing outdoors and this is especially true during the summer months  so this holiday is a perfect opportunity to raise awareness in regards to the risks involved with those otherwise good times. Because of this, the phrase ‘slip, slop, slap and wrap’—which originated in Australia and New Zealand and is now used worldwide—encourages sun enthusiasts to slip on a shirt, slop on sunscreen,  slap on a hat, and wrap on sunglasses. To that point, I'm not sure if there is any better way for me to honor the sig

San Bernardino Spirit (Hat Club Retro) - Fresh Fitted Friday!!!!

After a few weeks in MLB-appreciation land, I've decided to shift my attention back toward MILB. This week's San Bernardino Spirit retro that I picked up from Hat Club in 2019 is  the perfect cap to segue into yet another caravan of caps from West Coast teams and not just because it  fulfills the "star" theme requirement seen in the previous three posts. The main connection this cap shares with last week's Seattle Mariners cap is that it was one of the first logos worn by the generation of Mariners who were drafted right after the upside down trident drifted off to sea for good in 1987. It me, the guy who bought a 7 1/8 and not a 7 3/8 or 7 1/2 like I normally wear. All good though as my Hat Jack has been working overtime this past year trying to stretch it out to my size. I hope Hat Club decides to retro this cap again one day because I'm not even close to forgiving myself for ordering the wrong size here. Plus, this hat is so tight I'm about to pass out

1981-86 Seattle Mariners

The first thought that popped into my head as I sat down to write this week's post was, "Wow, am I really going to not write about a minor league cap for the third post in a row? If so, when was the last time I went back-to-back-to-back with MLB caps on this blog?" I realize that question might not be of any real interest to anyone other than me (and perhaps a few other nerds) but just in case you are wondering what the answer is, I should probably just tell you now so that you won't leave this page to search through the archives. Three years. Yeah, it's been exactly that long since I've tripled up on MLB caps here. Under normal circumstances, three years is not an extraordinarily long amount of time but if  February 2020 feels like it was many, many years ago then 2017   truly does seem like a time long passed  if you consider all of the insane world events since then. I was reminded on my quest to find the answer to that query that it was my 2007 All-

1993 Calgary Cannons - Fresh Fitted Friday!!!!

This next chapter of the Quarantine Road Trip will primarily focus on bygone logos from the Pacific Coast League starting with the Calgary Cannons, which was a team that I distinctly remember from my youth despite my hometown being 2,500 miles away. Note, when you don't have a driver's license, the difference between 2,500 and 250 miles isn't much. I've written about the 1998 Cannons cap previously but the logo that the team wore from 1993 through 1997 is the one I that I will always associate with Calgary as that period was essentially the crescendo of my MILB mania. The sweatband tags here are identical to other caps from 1992 and 1993 in my collection such as Hickory Crawdads , Carolina Mudcats  and  Bend Rockies . In the photo below you'll see that there is no MILB batterman logo, proving this cap cannot be from before 1993. Like I said, no batterman logo. If you don't believe me, I don't know what to tell you, Jack! As I stated before,

Pre-2004 Everett AquaSox - Fresh Fitted Friday!!!

I hope everyone appreciated the temporary break from vintage caps over the last few weeks but I have to give you fair warning: this week's Everett AquaSox cap has plenty of aging on it as I have good reasons to believe this particular one was produced before 2004. Just looking at the logo is of no help in estimating this cap's age since the primary design has not been altered since the team's inception back in 1995, which of course was prime-time for tealism which we see prominently on the brim and cap button. The sweatband tags and satin taping on the inside are definitely from no year earlier than 2002 but I'd say this hat is either from that year or 2003, which was the last year this MILB tag appeared on most caps. I like the teal and poison-green on the MILB batterman here. Definitely spices things up! As you're well aware, I'm a huge fan of backstories when it comes to MILB teams and Everett is no exception. I've previously featured the A

1979 Spokane Indians Retro (Ebbets Field Flannels) - Fresh Fitted Friday!!!!

Welcome back to another fun week on the Quarantine Road Trip which is basically just me going "back-to-back" with showcasing Ebbets Field Flannels retro cap and this week's Spokane Indians cap is a replica of the style the team wore in 1979. That is actually pretty significant to me as that was the year I was born. Ain't that swell? This cap combines the "Taco Bell" aesthetic employed by the San Diego Padres in the 1970s along with the blue and yellow of Spokane's parent team at the time which was the Seattle Mariners. In my mind, to call this anything but the "Long John Silver's" style would be criminal. Besides death and taxes, the one sure thing in life is that if you order from Ebbets Field Flannels, you're going to get a top-quality cap that was Made in America and is built to last. As I've mentioned before, I'm not crazy about the satin underbrim on caps that are based on ones from the 1970s and 1980s but

2018 Tacoma Rainiers - Fresh Fitted Friday!!!!

Something you might have noticed is that I enjoy doing is going back-to-back with certain teams so the Pacific Coast League fun continues this week by bridging last week's Tacoma Rainiers cap  with the home cap that is currently worn by the team. The stand-alone scripted "R" cap logo here is one of the classiest logos in all of minor league baseball.  Sadly, this is a Made In China production so it'll take a while before it gets fully broken in like the Made In USA versions, if it even happens at all. Glad I kept the stickers on here so that I can remember how prices for hats increased by $3 in 2019. You really hate to see it when the quality goes down and the prices go up. I've got plenty more PCL caps coming your way however I want to take a break from future hats and instead talk about the future of MILB. As per recent reports , MLB is planning on eliminating up to 42 MILB teams with most of those cuts affecting rookie and short-season levels. E

2004 Tacoma Rainiers - Fresh Fitted Friday!!!!

Now that the Pacific Coast League discovery session is in full swing, we need to focus on the Tacoma Rainiers, whose PCL membership goes all the way back to 1960, thus making them longest-tenured member of the league. It would be foolish to think that the PCL didn't suffer some sort of atrophy when Major League Baseball began populating the west in 1958 but one benefit was cities in Washington state like Tacoma and Spokane were able to gain entry to the league. Wordmark logos typically don't do it for me but the teal "R" in Rainiers here is incredible.  Ahh, the famed 2004 satin taping commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 59Fifty cap.   Of course, I love the tealism on the MILB batterman as well.  While I certainly appreciate the uniqueness of the 50th anniversary caps looked, I think it should go on the   Trading Block  because I'm sure someone out there is looking for a rarity such as this one and is willing to part  with one of the caps

1992 Peninsula Pilots

Welp I ran out of Carolina League teams to show y'all but that's not shocking considering it's a small league after all.  Until 2016 there were only eight teams in the Carolina League and I've already written about six (seven including last week's Winston-Salem Spirits cap) of the cities with current teams, as well as the Durham Bulls who are no longer in the league.  As for the other cities (both former and current) in the league, there isn't a hat that I've felt the a strong enough need to obtain about besides, of course, the crown jewel of my Carolina League collection: the Peninsula Pilots. Objectively, the logo is nothing special and could easily be confused with a Detroit Pistons hat. In fact, the only other Pilots hat that I ever found was mislabeled as a Pistons hat in an eBay listing. Unfortunately, the seller removed the item before I had a chance to bid on it and for that reason I feel extra fortunate that I found this beater a few years l