Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

No post this week but (I think) I'll be back in action next week. Cheers!

This week's Fresh Fitted is another one from The Great eBay Haul but this one is different in that it's not too small for me to wear. It is, however, too  big  by a size or two but the fact I red hats aren't my jam means that I'll probably end up trading it for something I'd actually wear. If not, it would be nice to have a vintage cap like this one around for research. I've mentioned before how in addition to staying away from red caps, I have a general rule against wearing MLB caps in NYC, other than of course rocking a Yankees hat to Yankee Stadium. I think I avoid MLB caps because I don't want to mislead tourists from that team's city into thinking they can ask me for directions. I'm a bad person. Assigning a specific year to this cap might seem like a hard row to hoe but it really isn't. The sweatband tags could be from anywhere between 2001 to 2004 but I'm going to guess this cap is from either 2001 or 2002 based on

I'm conflicted about the All Star Break. On one hand, I like that teams get a chance to take a breather before ramping up for playoff runs, or in the case of my San Francisco Giants, a brief respite from a season that is a complete disaster. And then on the other hand, I really don't like being without baseball (especially fantasy) even if it's for a few short days. One thing I do like about the break is the All Star Game, although this one was annoying because it was the first year in which the ASG patch shifted to the wearer's right side as the New Era flag is now mandatory on every official on-field cap. Some don't mind it but I find it distracting so I'm not going to buy any of the ASG caps unless they're on clearance.  Because I miss the glory days when teams were not forced to blatantly advertise the companies that manufacture their uniforms, I decided to take a break from writing about Minor League caps to showcase a few of the MLB hats tha

For this week's edition of Fresh Fitted Friday , I want to acknowledge and pay tribute to the 10th anniversary of the 2007 MLB All-Star Game that was held in San Francisco. Two years ago, I wrote about the cap that the New York Yankees wore during that game but for the 10 year milestone I feel the need to show y'all pics of the Real McCovey , I mean Real McCoy . I've lamented before about how I regretted not scooping one of these when they were originally being sold in Bay Area stores but at least I was lucky enough to eventually find one! I love this All Star Game patch and just to show I'm not a complete homer, I'll tell you I make every attempt to get my hands on any hat that has this patch, not just Giants ones!  In contrast with the aforementioned 2007 All Star Game Yankees cap, this one has the "Blue Box" New Era sweatband tag however the other tags and the satin taping match up with that hat.    One thing I did get wrong wh

This week's selection from The Great eBay Haul features not only another defunct Connecticut minor league team but it also follows the theme of caps that are too dang small for my noggin. I still had to at least try on this size 7 1/8 New Haven Ravens cap for nostalgia sake as one of my first MILB caps as a youngster was a Ravens hat. It might have actually been the same size as this one! Before they ever played a game,  I probably bought (aka my mom bought) that Ravens cap  assuming they were a Marlins affiliate (rather than Rockies) because of the black and teal colorway. I  don't know if I've told you this before but my Bar Mitzvah colors were teal and purple because like most people in the early 1990's, I had an acute case of Tealism. This cap's crown has a New Era flag so the earliest it can be from is 1999 and because the Ravens made some minor adjustments to their cap logo in 2001, this one is either from 1999 or 2000. The satin taping and

For this week's Fresh Fitted Friday selection from The Great eBay Haul, I decided to continue riffing on the reptile theme from last week's Wisconsin Timber Rattlers post with this Norwich Navigators cap from 1998. Get it? Navi-GATORS?!?! HAHAHAHA The Albany-Colonie Yankees of the Eastern League moved to Norwich, CT in 1995 and their rebrand as the Navigators lasted until the 2006 season when they became the Connecticut Defenders. In 2010, the team moved to Virginia and ever since have been known as the  Richmond Flying Squirrels which was a rebrand helmed by Brandiose. The logos and sweatband tags are spot on with other caps that are tagged here as 1998 but as we saw with last week's Timber Rattlers cap, the lack of a New Era flag is not always a dead giveaway that a cap is from before 1999. Just like with last week's cap, I've seen lots of 1999 baseball cards where players wore Navigators caps without the flag.  One last item of note th

Answer honestly: are y'all getting sick of reading about these hats from The Great eBay Haul by now? I ask only as I've got many, many weeks worth of size 7 1/4 hats that I want to write about...and trade/sell off. Maybe I need to spice it up a little which is why I'm thinking of communicating this week's Wisconsin Timber Rattlers cap in Parseltongue! What's "Parseltongue" you ask? According to the Harry Potter Wikia page , Parseltongue is the "language of serpents...and those who can converse with them". This is a really good idea folks! Also, let's pretend the "W" behind the snake in this cap logo stands for "Wizard" rather than "Wisconsin"!  Oh you don't want to have fun? Fine, I'll just show you some interior crown photos of this vintage gem which I basically decided to feature today  because it has a maroon brim and black crown like last week's Williamsport Crosscutters cap . Aren't