Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

For those who  don't care about details pertaining to the materials New Era used in its caps over the years, I   admit that the posts from the past few weeks haven't been super exciting. But then again, would anyone who didn't at least have a passing interest ever purposefully come to this blog in the first place? What is exciting (for me at least) is I found a backup for the Denver Zephyrs hat that I wrote about in the early years of Baseball Milquetoast.  This is a hard one to find and I'm glad it didn't cost me an absurd amount of money.  The cap logo is a little frayed but consider this: when the Denver Zephyrs suited up for their last game in 1992, a good majority of my co-workers were not born yet. So let's just think about that for a moment. Not the crispest sweatband but what can you do? Like I said earlier, this cap couldn't have been worn by a Denver Zephyr after 1992 and these sweatband tags seem to be most consistent with caps from 199

As you know, last week's Fresh Fitted was not part of my collection but I nevertheless gave it some airtime for the sake of sweatband tag research.  I'm mildly obsessed with time-stamping my caps and this week follows in that trend so I hope that's fine by you. I got into a bit of a rabbit hole looking at All-Star Game caps from years past last week so I've got a bunch to show and tell you about today.  F or those who are fans of these caps, this is your lucky day. For those who aren't, this is not your lucky day. Some of you younger folk out there might remember a ballplayer by the name of Mike Hampton. I always thought he was a swell guy but Hampton is the name of a town near where I'm from so I might be biased. A 1999 All-Star Game cap signed by Mike Hampton was featured here before and while he went 22-4 that year, his 2001 season was not as stellar even though he made the All-Star team.   The "New Era" and size tags are ones th

Disclaimer : For the first time in a long while, this is a post that is not about Tim Raines or the Montreal Expos. I've spilled much ink over Raines and the Expos lately but now is the time to move past the celebration phase of the 2016 Hall of Fame voting results. I do believe this is an acceptable time to make a case for a player I grew up watching and one who deserves more Hall of Fame votes than he's received thus far: the inimitable and easily irritable Gary Sheffield! I realize a one-off blog post isn't going to get the man inducted into Cooperstown. Shef had his troubles defensively but it's hard to argue against the strong  offensive numbers he put up during his 22 year career. Even though Shef wasn't a DH, his numbers rival Edgar Martinez, Vladamir Guerrero and David Ortiz who are each worthy of induction.  /rant Whether you think Shef belongs in the Hall or not shouldn't stop you from enjoying the photos below which are of a signed hat th

Last week's Montreal Expos post was a little heavy but y'all know how I get when I get to talking about that dang team! While this week continues on the Expos trend, I wanted to showcase this ever-so-fun Vermont Expos snapback from the mid-1990's. That's Champ. He's the team's mascot and he's an undeniably happy little fella there isn't he? He couldn't get mad if he wanted to. Even if Jeffrey Loria wanted to drain the swamp (or lake) in which he lives. I was looking for a fitted version of this cap but it's a hard cap logo to find so I'm happy with the snapback version for now.  We've definitely seen this tag before and while it's not a giveaway for a specific year, the lack of the "New Era flag" tags tells me it's pre-1997. As far as I've been able to tell, the MILB batterman has  appeared on caps around 1994  at the earliest. You're seeing it from the inside here so you can appreciate the lo

Update: I modified some formatting below and fixed some broken image links (with old, somewhat blurry photos) but kept the content the same otherwise. (10/13/2021) After spending the last few weeks digging into sweatband tags of World Series caps, I'm ready for a change of topic. I was either looking for a cap with a connection to Tim Raines but there are many others that have patiently been waiting on the shelf as well. W hen I heard the news that Jeffrey Loria was fixing to selling the Florida Marlins  I knew what to do. Compared to the  pinwheel  and the  "Make Montreal Great Again"  styles this is the most subdued of all the logos Montreal rolled out over the years.  I was just chatting with a fellow cap fanatic about how much I love the grey underbrim aesthetic. I love the contrast between it and the darker crowns. It's hard to pinpoint an exact year for this cap but these are the sweatband tags from 1994-1996 This week's post is kind of bittersweet so that&#

If you've been coming around here the past few weeks, you know that I've been on a crazy Tim Raines tear but I'm going to pause on covering his former teams to talk  about this Cleveland Indians 1997  World Series cap. The differences between its tags and  last week's Florida Marlins cap from the very same year got my head spinning so here we are!   Of course, it's important to remember that there were no hard and fast rules — only guidelines — when it came to which tags New Era would use on its caps. The main reason for this differential probably has as much to do with available supply as anything else. Hopefully you enjoy taking a look at this one! The Cleveland Indians primarily used this version of the ever-controversial "Chief Wahoo" cap logo during the 1997 World Series. This one is considerably larger than the logo seen on their 2016 World Series cap . Just like with last week's Florida Marlins 1997 World Series cap, this patch is

After writing about Tim Raines and his connection to the New York Yankees  1996 World Series cap last week, I wanted to cover  another cap from a team that Raines played for.  I was also itching to write about another World Series cap which is why   I'm glad I found this 1997 Florida Marlins cap.  Even though Raines wasn't on the team in 1997, he did spend his last season there in 2002. Sadly, I o nce again need to come clean to state that I do not own this cap. The good news in that admission is that if you head over to eBay fast enough the cap can be yours! Of course I'm not going to provide a link to it or anything but hopefully you can forgive me for that. My opinion often wavers when it comes to colorway preferences, but I dig the teal & black more in comparison to the all-teal and all-black versions.  Not much of a difference between the 1997 World Series patch and the one from the year before  but this patch has become somewhat iconic over time.