Buyer Beware !!! White Sox

This White Sox cap recently appeared on ebay and immediately caught my eye.

It was listed as being game worn by Minnie Minoso when he played for the White Sox from the years 1951-53.

Immediately, something does not look right.

The logo?

The four rows of stitching on the top of the visor?

The seller claims that New Era started making caps with eight rows of stitching on the top of the visor in 1954.  Hmm....

When in doubt, look to the tag.

It may be hard to see here, but you can enlarge the ebay photo, and clearly see that the words "Authentic Major League" on the tag.

New Era did not start placing the "Authentic Major League" on the tags until the mid 80's.

The seller could be sincere and not know that this cap is not from the 50's or 60's.

1994 World Series Champions

I don't like the look of  a cap with a patch on the side.  It  just doesn't look "clean" to me.

Then Hatclub came up with this...

Made in the USA is a must

I could do without the New Era logo on the side.

What's so special about this cap?  If you look closely, you can see that it declares the Montreal Expos the 1994 World Champions.


On August 11, 1994 the MLB season came to a screeching halt and did not end with a World Series.

The Montreal Expos would end the season in 1st place with a record of 74-40.

MLB began wearing patches on the side of caps during the 1996 World Series.

 

 

 

Well done Hatclub!

Literary devices

My recent blog post about animal adaptations was pretty popular and I heard from several Science teachers.

Let's continue to explore to expand our horizons by mixing baseball and literary devices.

Alliteration: 

the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words.

Miami Marlins

 Philadelphia Phillies

Tidewater Tides

Last year was 2006

In 2007 became the Norfolk Tides

Homonym:

each of two or more words having the same spellings but different meanings

Louisville Bats (animal and not baseball bat)

International League

Triple "A" affiliate of the Reds

Homophone:

Each of two or more words having the same pronunciation, but different meanings, origins, or spelling

Cedar Rapids Kernels (not colonels)

Single "A" affiliate of the Twins

Midwest League

Foreshadowing:

a warning or indication of a future event

In 1999, MLB ran a Turn Ahead the Clock promotion and some teams wore futuristic uniforms depicting the year 2027.

 Oakland Athletics TATC cap

New York Mets "2027" cap

.

Onomatopoeia:

the formation of a word from the sound associated with what is made

Salt Lake  Buzz

1994-2000

Pacific Coast League

Triple "A" affiliate of Twins

Personification:

the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something non human.

Beloit Snappers

Beloit Wisconsin

Single "A" affiliate of the Oakland Athletics

Midwest League

Montgomery Biscuits

Double "A" affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays

Southern League

Assonance:

the repetition of the sound of a vowel or diphthong in non rhyming syllables near enough to each other  for the echo to be discernible

ex: "go mow the lawn"

Hartford Yard Goats

Double "A" affiliate of the Colorado Rockies

Eastern League

Founded in 2016

Denver Zephyrs

1984-1992

American Association

Triple "A" affiliate of the White Sox, Reds, and Brewers

Moved to New Orleans in 1993

Allusion:

an expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it, an expression without mentioning it

Altoona Curve

Altoona, Pennsylvania

Double "A" affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates

Team name is an allusion to the horseshoe curve which was completed in 1854. 

It shortened the length of time one could cross the state of Pennsylvania from five days to one.

Greenville Drive

Greenville, South Carolina

Single "A" affiliate of the Red Sox

Founded in 2006

Drive is an allusion to the auto industry.  South Carolina is home to over 250 auto manufacturing companies and Greenville is a hot spot.

Anyone else notice this?

Game 7 of the World Series between the Indians and the Cubs could not have been more exciting.

When the game ended, I continued to watch the post game celebrations and interviews when I noticed Joe Maddon wearing what looked like an Angels cap?

A quick internet search confirmed that I was not seeing things.

Joe Maddon was a bench coach in 2002 when the Angels won the World Series by beating the San Francisco Giants in seven games.

It was also the rookie year of this cap:

I don't particularly care for this style, as I like to see some color contrast in the logo, but it is an improvement over what they were wearing in 2001:

Anyway, back to Joe Maddon.  Why was he wearing an Angels cap after he just won the World Series as the manager of the Cubs?

Turns out this was his father's cap that he always carries with him.  According to an article I read, Joe's father passed away in 2002 and he saved his dad's cap.

He stated that this cap is permanently in his bag and goes everywhere with him.  On the day of game seven, he looked at and thought of it more than usual.

This got me thinking.....

My father is getting up in age and not in the best health that I would like him to be.

On my last visit to my parents house, I surveyed a few rooms to see where his caps were.  He has quite a few (all snapbacks) and rarely leaves the house without one

I might even start wearing one now.

Cap Icons

A few months ago, I talked about a book I had come across titled Ballcap Nation. 

The author, James Lilliefors, was having coffee with his girlfriend and was surprised at how many people were wearing ballcaps.

Mr. Lilliefors makes a case that Tom Selleck and Victor French made it acceptable to wear caps in any social setting.

How about some others that have made cap wearing socially acceptable...

 

1919-1922 NY Giants cap worn by "Short Stuff" in Temple of Doom.

Great job el_gmac!

 

Christmas Vacation (1989) is one of my all time favorites.

Ice Cube featured a Tigers cap in Boyz N the Hood (1991)

Billy Crystal consistently donned a Mets cap in the 1991 wildly popular  City Slickers.

I'm no fan of Tom Cruise but I do remember him wearing a Red Sox cap in A few Good Men. (1992)

The Chicago White Sox cap would get my vote as "cap of the 90's" as it was popularized by Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Eze E, and Tupac.

Michael Moore has more caps than the people that read this blog.

This would get my vote for 2016 cap of the year.

If I missed one please let me know!

Ball Cap Nation

I'm not going to beat around the bush.  I absolutely love this book.

If you have found this blog, you should check it out. 

I learned about the importance of Magnum P.I., the story behind Hat World, New Era, and the proper care and maintenance of caps.

I reached out to author James Lilliefors for a quick interview::

Where did the idea for the book come from?

I was having lunch with my girlfriend one day and she glanced around the restaurant and said, “Look at all the people wearing baseball caps. "

Twenty years ago, you wouldn’t have seen that. She was right. What had changed in our culture during that time to make ball caps so prevalent?

The book started with that question. As I began to look into the history of the ball cap, the story branched off in other directions and it soon became clear that the ball cap was a part of American cultural history that hadn’t really been written about.

I’d recently done a book on boardwalks and was looking for another topic about American culture; ball caps seemed to fit the bill (okay, sorry, bad pun).

Are you a cap collector?

I have a large but not especially distinguished collection of ball caps. Mostly I collect caps as souvenirs of places

I’ve traveled. I always buy at least one cap on vacation.

Are you a baseball fan, what team do you wear?

As a kid, I was a huge baseball fan, as were most of my friends. I’d often spend more time studying baseball stats than school assignments.

But then my home team, the Washington Senators, abandoned us and became the Texas Rangers.

During the 33 years that Washington was without a baseball team, I lost most of my interest in the sport.

I sort of follow the Nationals now, and also a couple of the teams in Florida (where I live), but not closely.

So I don’t wear any team’s cap, no. But I do still wear a Redskins cap in the fall.

Favorite thing you learned from writing?

That writing can take you anywhere and teach you anything.

Specifically from the cap book: that the baseball cap has become an apt symbol of our country (and one of our chief cultural exports), but that its meaning changes depending on the wearer.

I like the basic contradiction inherent in cap-wearing: ball caps are a way of expressing our individuality and at the same time our sense of being part of a larger community.

Names and genres of other books you have written?

I’m writing novels these days, including a mystery series about a pastor and a homicide investigator (The Psalmist and The Tempest) and a geopolitical thriller series featuring a former CIA operative and his journalist brother (The Leviathan Effect and Viral).

I’ve also written books on Americana and on art, including America’s Boardwalks.

Thank You James!!

Tip of the Cap to Tampa Bay

From a fan's point of view, I live and die with the Phillies.

As a cap collector, Tampa Bay is the gift that keeps on giving.

They redesigned their caps before they started to play!

In 1995, three years before they began play, they rolled out these caps for retail sales:

Horrible in my opinion and look like Minor league logos.

In their first year of play in MLB  (1998)they ended up wearing these on the field:

For me, animals and nicknames do not belong on a MLB cap.

But back to the focus of this post, to document some unique caps worn by the Rays over the years.

On 6/21/08 the Rays wore caps and uniforms of the St. Petersburg Pelicans of the Senior Baseball league.  This league only existed from 1989-90.

The cap on the far left is a game worn  cap that I purchased from one of the players from the Senior league.

The cap in the middle was worn by Scott Kazmir on 6/21/08 and has the MLB hologram certification.  It also has a Cooperstown Collection tag on the inside as well.

The cap on the right was purchased from the team store at Tropicana Field and has a Genuine Merchandise tag inside.

The "Brayser" cap debuted in 2010. 

Manager Joe Maddon designed plaid sport jackets for a road trip.

Players wore the caps on 09/29/10 in a 2-0 loss to Baltimore.

On  7/2/11, the Rays paid tribute to the 1951 Tampa Smokers.

The Smokers were a "B" level Minor league team of the Florida  International League.

It was a 5-1 win over the St. Louis Cardinals.

Earth Day Cap

Worn on 4/21/12 for batting practice only at home vs. the Minnesota Twins.

This is my favorite "Turn Back the Clock" cap of all time.

On the left is the actual model that was first worn on the field on 6/30/12, again on 7/6/13, 6/21/14, and 6/27/15.

On the right, is the retail version that New Era sold to the public.

Tampa Bay did not begin play until 1998, but why can't they have a throwback?

Introduced on 8/10/14....the road version of the "Turn Back the Clock".

It was a 3-2 loss to the Cubs for the Rays.

As far as I know, this cap has not been worn since.

To honor the victims of the shooting at Orlando's Pulse night club, the Rays wore this cap on 6/17/16.

The Orlando Rays were the AA Minor League affiliate from 1999-2003.

This cap would get my vote as "Cap of the Year" for 2016.