Missives of a Baseball Milquetoast

The blog needed a cleanse after last week's Dodgers-adjacent post, and while I was hoping for this week's theme to be a celebration of the New York Yankees clinching their ALDS series, their season is now over after being swept by the Tampa Bay Rays.  Five months have passed since the last time I shared a Yankees cap here  and it is hard to believe that their record was 26-13 at that point. A lot can change during the course of a game, let alone over a stretch of a few weeks, months, or years, and yet, the ALDS outcome is fitting considering the Yankees' 93-68 regular season record was second best to the Rays. As a Giants fan, all that matters to me now is that the Los Angeles Dodgers do not advance past the NLCS, so I'm cheering on the Brewers as I hope their National League-leading best record translates into them beating the Dodgers —who had the second-best winning percentage—in this upcoming series just as the Rays took care of the Yankees. The energy in New York Ci...

The League Division Series stage of the MLB postseason begins tomorrow, but my excitement level is lukewarm at best. I have felt detached from this week's Wild Card series due to its inaccessibility as someone who does not subscribe to the league's streamer-du-jour service, which I am choosing not to name at this time, as next year we could have another villain. Instead, I have been revisiting MILB highlights from this past season as well as the Triple-A National Championship Game between the Oklahoma City Comets, who were the champions of the 2026 Pacific Coast League, and the Rochester Red Wings, who claimed the title in the International League and were the topic of last week's Fresh Fitted Friday post. As a staunch Giants fan, my resolve to detest anything Dodgers-adjacent is overshadowed by my respect for the Comets’ logo so I'm choosing to honor their victory in that single-game playoff match-up for this week's post. Despite my attempts to hate on their entire...

I enjoyed writing about a Buffalo-exclusive last week and am keeping the tradition going today with my Rochester Red Wings "Flower City" custom from the flagship shop. This week's Fresh Fitted Friday selection plays up the team's former affiliation with the Minnesota Twins and their iconic powder blue uniforms, and the team's name itself propels the "flight" theme forward too. Major kudos are due to Rochester for consistently hosting a team called the Red Wings since 1929 without once considering a rebrand. Even more interesting is if you combine the era they were affiliated with the St. Louis Cardinals (1929-1960) with their years with the Baltimore Orioles (1961-2002), that's 74 consecutive years of being a "baby birds" farm team. The interlocking "FC" here is a clear nod to Minnesota's famed "TC" (Twin Cities) logo, and according to sportslogos.net , the Red Wings introduced this "Flower City" alternate...

As I was considering what to cover in this week's post, I thought it might be fun to write about an Air Force-themed cap because today is the anniversary of the signing of the National Security Act of 1947, which marked its establishment as an independent branch of the United States military. While looking through the caps I have not yet written about I noticed the only aviation-related ones have more to do with space travel and I have already earmarked dates for those posts. I did have a Peninsula Pilots retro cap that I've been wanting to highlight for a while and even though they might be named after maritime pilots, I think it's time to let it fly anyway! The New Era flagship store in Buffalo got really close to the original logo here. I will hopefully someday soon get a chance to attend a Coastal Plain League to see the current incarnation of the Peninsula Pilots that plays at War Memorial Stadium in Hampton. No batterman logo here is just fine because the Carolina Lea...

My standard process with the blog is to put forth lighthearted topics on the blog; however, today being the 25th anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks perpetrated on the United States in 2001 is urging me to honor the solemn occasion in a meaningful way in today's Fresh Fitted Friday post. Looking back at the archives, I am surprised that I did not properly commemorate this anniversary in previous years (2015 and 2020) when it occurred on a Friday; however, in my 1921 New York Giants "Roman Pro Cap Co." Retro Cap post , I did at least select a New York team's cap for that 20th anniversary post, which I  published a day early on September 10, 2001. I've written about New York teams recently, so I decided instead to honor Welles Crowther today, who was a volunteer firefighter and equities trader by profession who worked in the South Tower and saved as many as 18 lives during the September 11 attacks. There are many stories of people who lost their lives sav...

Recent posts have been a bit more effusive than what is befitting of a perfunctory Friday dispatch, so with this special "Labor Day" edition of Fresh Fitted Friday post, I solemnly swear to put forth the bare minimum amount of effort to honor the spirit of the holiday. I mentioned in last week's post that my San Francisco Giants would be in town playing the New York Mets, so I am certainly looking forward to catching hopefully two out of three games of that series, but if my schedule were a bit more manageable, I would have made a push to go see Phish play their three-show set at Dicks Sporting Goods Park in Colorado this weekend. Accepting circumstances beyond one's control can be challenging, so as much as I would love to be enjoying good times in Colorado with friends, staying in town to catch some games where my favorite (but terrible) team is playing is a fine option! So while I cannot physically be in Denver this weekend, the Denver Bears cap I am sharing with y...