In my first season of organized youth baseball, I played for the Red Sox in the Tris Speaker baseball league in suburban Cleveland. Now, 60 years later, I finally have an actual Red Sox cap.
It’s not the same cap the BoSox wear at Fenway Park, but it’s a fine replica, one I found unexpectedly in an antique store in Burlington, New Jersey, last weekend. Burlington is about 25 miles south of our home, and my wife and I go there a few times each year to visit a couple of antique stores that we like.
I always like tagging along because I just might find something I like — an old diecast car, a vintage pair of cuff links or just about anything that might strike my fancy. As my wife was getting her purchase rung up at the checkout counter, I spotted a rack around the corner that I hadn’t previously seen.
To my surprise, it had stacks of new baseball caps, a lot of Yankees, Mets and Phillies as befits Burlington, on the outskirts of Philadelphia and still within the media radius of the Big Apple. There were caps from other teams, too, and I grabbed one of the two remaining classic Red Sox caps. For $12, I couldn’t resist.
Then I saw the sign that said buy two, pay $20. Such a deal! I grabbed a Phillies City Connect cap, the one with the liberty bell on it. I don’t lack for ball caps, as anyone who reads this blog knows and a point not lost on my wife. She rolled her eyes and relented with a smile and let me add the caps to our purchase.
Afterwards, she took a couple of photos of me outside the store so I could send one to our daughter-in-law, a die-hard Red Sox fan from Massachusetts.
She was pleased, I was happy, and my wife had some new ice cream dishes to add to her collection of glassware. I’ll take a day like that any time. 🧢
The Ball Caps Blog 