Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

Not long ago I picked up this 1999 Columbus Clippers cap but haven't worn it until right now because it looks like next week will be my first Yankees game of the year. I'll need to be rocking a Yankees cap with some uniqueness to it and I think this will do the trick. This is the classic "Big C" logo that the Clippers wore from 1996 through 2008. You can pick up a legit reproduction at Sole Collector while supplies last. Get on that! The sweatband tags match the ones from the  1998 World Series New York Yankees cap , yet the "New Era" flag didn't show up  on Clippers caps until 1999, making this the earliest year this cap could have been produced. That MILB batter man is completely murdered-out. I haven't seen one like that before or since this cap! The Clippers wore this cap from 1996 through the 2008 season and while it's not going to be the most obscure cap in the bleachers, I still doubt most of the fans will recognize

Behold the signature colorway of the 1990's: teal and purple.  Here we see the same inner sweatband tags as these previously featured caps: Stockton Ports , Midland Angels and Hickory Crawdads If it wasn't for the MILB batter man logo I'd guess this was a Florida Marlins cap for sure.  You have to respect a cap that keeps the tags unpopped for so long. After last week's spotlight on a cap from a South Carolina team, I thought it would be appropriate to continue that theme for this week's Fresh Fitted  with a relic from the mid-1990's.  This cap's garish "Charlotte Hornets style" colorway of teal and purple sums up that era to a T.   While I'm less than enthusiastic about the dated colorway, I'm not completely sold on the cap's logo either.  I get that it's a cute dog biting so hard on a bat that it breaks in half but this logo has been around for almost twenty years and it hasn't evolved v

This version of the Capital City Bombers cap differs from others that the Bombers wore in the 1990's as it has a black brim rather than the more commonly used red brim.    This logo definitely fits the bill of "zany minor league design from the early 1990's.  The sweatband is clearly showing signs of age more than other caps that I've collected from this era but they can't all be so crisp and pristine.  I was revisiting an episode of House of Cards recently and I noticed for the first time that there was a brief mention of the Greenville Drive. For those who are unaware, the Greenville Drive happens to be a (real-life) minor league team based in South Carolina, which is the home-state of (fictional character) Frank Underwood. During their first year as a member of the South Atlantic League in 2005, the team was known as the Greenville Bombers. I suppose they hung on to the name that they had used in their former home-city of Columbia to see if

Just know that the tag has been attached to this cap for over 22 years. That tag could buy you a beer, provided of course that you are of legal drinking age. Also, the tag would need money to purchase the beer and everyone knows tags don't have money. Variations of this logo have been around since the early days of the Memphis Chicks, but this particular version was only used in 1992.  The squarish green underbrim is typical of New Era minor league caps from this period. I am not certain what fabric makes up the inside of the front panel but it seems like this will be a nice breathable cap for the summer months! I've spent the past few weeks celebrating some different New York Yankees fitted caps so I thought it would be a fun change to take a look at a minor league snapback this time around.  As far as minor league hats are concerned, the 1986 Memphis Chicks on-field cap is holy grail for me. This is mostly because Bo Jackson made his debut for the Kansas

Last week’s spotlight on the New York Yankees World Series cap from 1998 got me pumped to do another sort of “Flashback Friday” this time around. I decided to fast-forward ten years to the special edition on-field cap the Yankees wore on March 18, 2008 during an exhibition game played against Virginia Tech’s baseball team.  The iconic Yankees logo, but with a little Virginia Tech co-branding on the side! Good view of the classic Virginia Tech "VT" logo. Hopefully no one at a Yankees game asks me if it's for Vermont... Usual suspects in terms of sweatband tags and 59Fifty satin taping The iconic red, white and blue MLB batterman The cap has major significance as this particular game was played in memoriam of the  shooting that occurred on the school’s campus on April 16, 2007 .  Yesterday marked the 8th anniversary of the massacre but I vividly remember that day. I also remember how sad this cold-blooded attack made me feel for a long time thereafte

I think this is a sweet World Series side patch, but I like the ones from 2012 and 2013 that have the trophy on them even more.   I go to lots of Yankees games and I love it when I see the veteran fans wearing this cap! Get a good look at those sweatband tags from 1998!  It's not common to find this cap in unused condition. I guess some fan was still rocking his 1996 World Series cap when this one surfaced. By the time he was ready for it, the Yankees were selling caps for the 1999, 2000 and 2001 World Series, though the 2001 cap is not one that you'll see fans wearing for obvious reasons. You all know what the Yankees logo looks like and represents: pure Death Star status right there! The 2015 baseball season is officially underway and if your favorite team is 0-4, I offer my condolences and I wish you the best of luck for next season. However, if your favorite team is 4-0 at this point then I must congratulate you on your all-but-guaranteed World Ser

This Tucson Toros cap logo is not the most iconic, but it's not without symbolistic importance. You might be asking yourself, "how is ripping off the Chicago Bulls logo symbolic?"and to that I can only reply with, can you not tell that there are no red tips on this Bull's  (oops!) Toro's horns? It seems like Pro-line went with the extra-round varietal of brims this particular season. Good ol' sweatband tags doing their jobs! I'm writing about about one final cap from a team based in a Spring Training state to close out the theme of the past few weeks. I chose to focus on this Tucson Toros cap in light of the Arizona Wildcats' elimination from the NCAA Championship. I always thought it was so handy that there was a Triple-A baseball team in the same town as a big school like the University of Arizona.  So after many years of baseball prosperity in Tucson, the death rattle began to shake when the Arizona Diamondbacks were born. It truly is sad