Iconic baseball caps: Boston Red Sox

The Boston Red Sox were eliminated from the American League playoffs today by the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, as good an occasion as any to honor the Red Sox cap for its iconic status. I’ve had occasional flirtations with the BoSox but mostly an uneasy relationship over the years. My first youth baseball team […]

So long, St. Louis Cardinals

That didn’t take long. The Los Angeles Dodgers made short work of the Cardinals in the National League Division Series, closing out the sweep this evening 5-1 in St. Louis. The Cardinals and their fans are thus stuck with this National League Central cap to mark their achievements this season. My fingers want to type […]

Iconic baseball caps: The Los Angeles Dodgers

The Los Angeles Dodgers cap is one of the best in baseball. With their blade-straight serifs against the deep blue fabric, the white “L” and “A” form one of the most instantly recognizable logos in sport. Look at this book cover photo of Sandy Koufax at left. (What a great portrait!) Even the most hardened […]

Caps off to The Captain, Derek Jeter, on tying Lou Gehrig’s hit mark

It took me a while to appreciate the greatness of Derek Jeter, who tonight in New York tied Lou Gehrig for a record 2,721 hits in a Yankees’ uniform. He’ll undoubtedly break the record in the next few games, and I hope he keeps on swinging until he reaches 3,000 hits. For most of my […]

Rowdy girl cap in Japan

Now here’s a ball cap. The photo, which I spotted on Yahoo this evening, is an AP picture of a spectator at the Asakusa Samba carnival in Tokyo a couple of weekends ago. In only the vaguest of ways does this photo remind me of the classic National Geographic cover photo of the “Afghan girl” […]

Ichiro gets his 2,000th MLB hit

A tip of the cap and a deep bow to the honorable Ichiro Suzuki, who struck his 2,000th major-league hit this afternoon in Oakland. Those hits came after the 1,278 hits he had playing in Japan before crossing the Pacific to play for the Mariners. Ichiro’s accomplishments are remarkable. Statistically, he’s one of the greatest […]

The Tribe’s lost season

It’s another bitter September for fans of the Cleveland Indians. Not only is the team in the tank, but about the only star to remain after the summer fire sale — Grady Sizemore — is done for the year. Sizemore will undergo two surgeries, one on his left elbow and another on his midsection. In […]

A new, more modest era for ball caps

The New York Times reports today on the state of the baseball cap industry, and it is certainly not immune to the recession. Sales are off 10 percent over last year at New Era, one of the industry leaders. “We’re seeing a very jittery landscape,” the company president tells the Times. “People are trying to […]

The All-American baseball cap, by way of China

This is 2009, and Google pretty much rules the world. For no particular reason, tonight I typed “baseball caps” into the Google Images search bar to see what would come up first. And here it is, at right: the “6 Panels Baseball Cap with Brass Buckle” as displayed on made-in-china.com. The irony cannot be escaped. […]

Popular: Baseball caps are all about popular

I spent the day with my son and two of his friends at the Great America theme park in Santa Clara, Calif. While I joined the guys for several rides, I sat a few out and amused myself by taking inventory of the baseball caps people in the crowd were sporting. As the San Francisco […]