At mid-week, I took a train into New York City on my way to visit my son and his family who live in Manhattan. They had given me a spiffy fitted and personalized San Francisco Giants cap for Christmas, and wearing it was the right headwear choice for a moderately cold January outing.
On the 1 train heading uptown from Penn Station, a woman spotted my cap and asked if I lived in San Francisco. Used to, I replied somewhat hesitantly, because one never knows how a subway conversation might turn — brief and sweet, or long and crazy.
Within moments, the woman started singing — one guess! — “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” In an unexpectedly fine voice, she spread her arms as she sang a few couplets from the Tony Bennett classic.
I’m not sure what the other riders thought of her rendition, but it did bring a smile to my face. We traded niceties and went our separate ways as we disembarked at Columbus Circle.
Since I have a varied collection of baseball caps, I often wear a different cap on each visit to the city. It’s not unusual for one of the lids to draw a reaction from the Yankees or Mets fans who predominate in the Big Apple.
A doorman, evidently a fan of the Metropolitans, looked askance at my Phillies cap last summer.
Early during the 2003 World Series, I wore a Florida Marlins cap not to goad Yankees fans (well, maybe a little) but because it was the cap of my younger son’s youth baseball team.
At Times Square, a Yankees fan said (perhaps more colorfully), “What’s with the hat?”
I grinned and said, “It’s for my son’s Little League team.”
I continued on my way unmolested, secretly chuckling that in a small way I’d counted coup on a New Yorker. 🧢
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