Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

As stated in last week's post  and many times before, it's always special when a Fresh Fitted makes its debut at a ballgame. Those of you who have seen the love given to minor league caps will know that wearing this Spokane Indians cap to a minor league game tonight is going to be extra special. As much as I'd love to debut this vintage gem at a Spokane Indians game, that's not an option. So instead of catching a Pacific League Baseball game on the west coast, tonight I'll be taking a ferry from Manhattan to my first Staten Island Yankees game.   I know this is another team's cap but I figure the S.I. on the logo is close enough to fit in with the locals even though the cap is red, white and blue. Of course, the best part about this logo is the serifs on the letters which are reminiscent of a Shreveport Captains cap that remains one of my favorites. I've only written about one other DeLong hat, but this is the my first snapback from this

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

The time is nigh for any final preparations for next week's MLB All-Star Game so for San Francisco Giants fans like me, that means lamenting the fact that Boston and Chicago fans gamed the voting system better than we did. Who knows? Maybe it's not so bad that more of our guys aren't making the trip to  San Diego while Dexter Fowler and Ben Zobrist will be. Fine, let them enjoy Addison Russell at shortstop rather than benefit from a defensive wizard like Brandon Crawford. Since Wil Myers is the host city's lone representative this year, I do however understand selecting him over Brandon Belt as a backup at first base. While it does annoy me that there will be so much team homogeny at the All-Star Game, I'm more annoyed with myself because for the first time in as long as I can remember, I forgot to submit even a single ballot this year. Simply put, I have no right to complain about the selections so I'm just hoping the National League wins this year. 

The 2016 MLB All-Star Game will be here in less than two weeks and I have an important question to ask: do you have a cap that is equally garish and banal enough to show support for your team? If you are a San Francisco Giants fan like I am, click here to pick one up in your team's flavor. I'm less than enthused about the stars on the eyelets but I appreciate that there are efforts being made to take new and interesting design choices on this year's on-field cap. In keeping with a trend that was started in 2014, this year's All-Star Game's on-field cap is a Diamond Era style hat where the colorways are not necessarily consistent with the one's a team uses normally. There are a few interesting palette choices overall and you can see a few examples of how this looks here . While they decided to keep the All-Star Game cap understated this year, you've no doubt seen the atrocity that is the 2016 Home-Run Derby cap . This design schema is in contrast to h

Last night, I was all set to deliver some photos and commentary on yet another cap from a previous year's All-Star Game when I realized the whole night had escaped me because I was watching a baseball game between the two worst teams in the AL West: the Los Angeles Angels and the Oakland A's. The only explanation as to why I put myself through such an ordeal is because one of my favorite former San Francisco Giants, Tim Lincecum, was on the mound for the Angels. To say I still have fond memories of The Freak is an understatement. To me, he symbolized the beginning of the current Golden Era of Giants baseball but of course the fact that I just called it a Golden Era will jinx them and they will be bad for the next 40 years. I think I just jinxed that jinx and they'll be good instead now but baseball is weird. I guess I'm weird too because superstition drove me to think that the safest way to ensure Tim Lincecum would be lights out last night (spoiler: he wasn&#

Longtime readers of the 'Toast (no one really calls it that, except for me just now) are fully aware that getting my hands on a vintage Charleston Rainbows cap has been a top priority of mine. In fact, it was almost a year ago that I was lamenting with friends on Twitter about how this hat was my holy grail and that any leads on finding one would be appreciated. My pleading and research finally paid off when I learned that starting in 2014, the Charleston RiverDogs of the Class-A South Atlantic League have held a yearly Pride Night where the players would wear throwback Rainbows uniforms.  I do have to admit that I'm a bit surprised that this year they changed the night's theme name from Pride Night to Rainbows Night . The team is however once again holding a jersey auction for the jerseys worn that night with the proceeds going to Charleston Pride. I'm sure that the intent of the name change was simply to be clear that they would be honoring the Rainbows rather t

I'm not usually into Giants hats in colorways other than black and orange but the combination of dark navy and gym red on the 2014 MLB All-Star Game Home Run Derby cap is mighty snazzy. The left-side patch seems almost painted on here. Not complaining, just an observation! In retrospect, it would have been cool if they honored Prince's hometown of Minneapolis with some purple here. Standard issue Diamond Era materials on the inside but of course I must dock points because the cap was not Made in U.S.A. The red, white and blue batterman seals the deal here even though the cap is imported from China. We are one week closer to the 2016 MLB All-Star Game and since last week’s post, there haven't been many new images released of this year's cap and uniform lineup. As of now, the only photo I’ve found of the cap that the players will be wearing during this year's ASG in San Diego is this one: Oops, sorry about that. The image