12/9/10 Hat of the Day

2006-Pres Spokane Indians (Northwest League) Home Cap

 Thursday, December 9th, 2010, The Fitted Cap Fiend goes on a trip Northwest & down in the minor leagues. It's there where you find 2 hidden gems of baseball: The city of Spokane itself, and the Spokane Indians, who currently have my favorite minor league baseball identity. Shoot, it's one of my favorite baseball identities period. It's a perfect blend of a traditional baseball look with a hint of modern amenities here & there. Plus, it's just about the classiest way you can do a Native American look w/o it being insulting or a caricature of Native Americans. I mean, they even made a logo in the Salish language, which is one of the coolest baseball logos I've ever seen. Everything about this identity just says 'classy.'

The classiest thing about this look? Of course, it's the hat. That's what we came here for! The hat is actually a great update on what was an already solid look. They combined elements of the past with new additions from the future to create what you see above. Major league quality on a minor league level. 

Of course, you get a little more leeway to be a bit more creative with minor league identities than you do with major league establishments that have been around since, what seems like, the beginning of time. The designers of this look took the leeway and made themselves a classic with this one. I can't say it enough, this is a REALLY GOOD LOOKING HAT (yes, that proclamation deserved all caps), and one that would make a perfect fit in your hat collections. I mean, you want to have a great looking hat on your head, but be unique at the same time (because, quite frankly, who's wearing a Spokane Indians hat outside of the Northwest US?)? Make sure you pick this up. I know I will (as soon as I graduate from being a poor college student, haha). I mean, it's the Hat of the Day, I feel as if I have a duty to pick this bad boy up now.

12/8/10 Hat of the Day

1994 Seattle Mariners Alternate Cap

 The 90s were good for a whole lot of stuff. Music (I don't know about you, but New Jack Swing was the greatest offshoot genre of music of all time, OF ALL TIME), technology (Everybody has a cell phone now, that's nothing. But if you had the Zack Morris Cell Phone, you had to beat the ladies away with a stick.), and the introduction of TEAL into the sports world. The first pro sports team in North America to jump on the Teal Train were the NBA's then-expansion club, the Charlotte Hornets back around '88-'89. It then spread like wildfire amongst the sports world. Then, it hit the Seattle Mariners in 1993. Go figure, the hottest new color to hit the sports world, and the team with arguably the hottest commodity in pro sports not named Michael Jordan (I'm talking about Ken Griffey Jr.) In 1994, Baseball's top talent also wore the coolest hat, which is the gem that you see, both above and below this paragraph.

Credit: sportslogos.net

This is one of my favorite baseball uniforms of all time, and not just because of the hat. But I digress, this is all about the hat. Although this may be a bit of teal overload, I think it's perfect, as far as the 90s is concerned. Hell, that cap is the 90s personified. Modern logo, hot colors, experimental execution. Really a shame that we only got to see this combo for one year, and finding pictures of the Mariners in this hat is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. It's crazy. HOWEVER, if what you read in this article (& in the quotation below) this is true, maybe it won't be as hard to find pictures of the Mariners donning this hat in the future...

I'm very excited the Mariners are bringing back the Northwest green uniforms next season, but it looks silly with the all-blue cap. Any reason why the green-brim cap isn't making a comeback, too?
-- Patrick S., Tacoma, Wash.

According to Mariners marketing director Kevin Martinez, when the NW green (or teal, as we used to call it) jerseys were introduced in 1994, the club wore them with a navy blue cap on the road and the green visor at home. So it's been done both ways.

When the Mariners trotted the green jersey back out for a Throwback Uniform night this past season, there was such a positive buzz from fans and players that the team made a last-minute application with MLB to approve the jerseys for use in '11. They didn't include the green cap in that proposal so, indeed, the new/old jerseys will only be worn with the blue cap this coming season when the alternate uniforms are used for Monday and Friday home games.

However, Martinez says if there is an outcry for the return of the green caps as well, the Mariners could certainly apply with MLB to add those caps the following season. So if you have a zeal for teal, let 'em know.

You hear that? Unlike yesterday's Hat of the Day that is still active but probably has no chance of returning to the field, THIS ONE MAY COME BACK. So heed their word, and 'Let 'em know,' Mariners fans! It's an awesome cap, it deserves to be back out there! It deserves to be on the heads of the players, as well as the fans. The Mariners would probably make a killing selling that hat on the nostalgia factor along. It's a great cap, and it will live forever on this blog as December 8th's hat of the Day. In the meantime, do you want more '90s awesomeness from Ken Griffey Jr & Nike? Sure you do.

12/7/10 Hat of the Day

2004-? Colorado Rockies Alternate Cap

Today's Hat of the Day at The Fitted Cap Fiend is, basically, one of the more elusive hats in Major League Baseball today...at least on the field. You can still buy this hat at any store that sells authentic MLB hats, and it even has the authentic labeling on it and everything  (if you're one of those guys that still likes to wear the sticker on the cap. Not that there's anything wrong with that. You can wear your hat however you want. But bruh...). But, according to Darth Brett over at the Chris Creamer Sports Logos Community (the absolute best forum for intelligent discussion of sports logos & anything else pertaining to sports), this hat was worn VERY briefly in 2004 and hasn't been seen since. In fact, here's a photo of one of the rare times the Rockies wore this hat.

That being said, as far as I know, it's still an option for the Rockies to wear. How do I know this? Wikipedia says so, and Wikipedia NEVER LIES.

Seeing the purple jersey is a rare occurrence nowadays. Seeing the purple hat? Even rarer. This look has become my white whale because of the fact that, well, it looks AWESOME. The Rockies, IMO, aren't one of the better looking teams in the big leagues, but they could be if they embraced purple. I mean, does the phrase "Purple Mountain Majesty" ring a bell? They have a chance to OWN purple in baseball, yet they marginalize it in favor of black. They could be a team that really stands out in baseball. Now? They're just another team that wears dark colors, which the MLB already has too much of. The Rockies do use purple though...just in the wrong way.

Yuck. So yeah, Colorado Rockies, I am politely telling you to USE THE PURPLE HAT, YOU FASHION BLIND DUMMIES. IT'S AWESOME. IT LOOKS GREAT. IT FITS YOUR IDENTITY TO A T. IT'S PATRIOTIC. IT WOULD MAKE THE NATIONAL PASTIME'S COLORADO TEAM LOOK BETTER. USA. USA. USA.

12/6/10 Hat of the Moment

1914 Chicago Cubs Hat

 

Maybe they'll win something again if they go back to this look. That Cub came to play. 

(Kidding, of course. The Cubs may never change from their current iconic identity, especially the home pinstripes...but I definitely wouldn't mind if they went the throwback route.)

12/6/10 Hat of the Day

1993-1998 Cincinnati Reds Home Cap

(First of all, allow me to introduce myself: I'm the Fitted Cap Fiend. I'm a hat savant, and this blog's mission is to share the love of the most iconic piece of equipment on a baseball field, something that everybody from the fans, to the managers, to the players wears whenever they decide to spend a day at the ballpark: The baseball cap. So, kick back & enjoy the show. If you want more action, follow me on twitter @FittedCapFiend, and/or subscribe to my tumblr at tumblr.com/fittedcapfiend if you want some random pictures of caps and people in those caps.)

Now, today's Hat of the Day is a somewhat forgotten classic in my opinion, the 1993-1998 Cincinnati Reds Home Cap. It's widely accepted that the Cincinnati Reds solid red cap with the wishbone C is one of the more iconic hats in baseball. It was the trademark of the 70s Big Red Machine, and after a brief flirtation with the sultry mistress known as the color black during the late '90s & early '00s, the franchise got back to their senses and were able to marginalize the black, therefore letting black be a great compliment to an already classic sports identity, instead of letting black dominate it.

But I digress. THIS RIGHT HERE is what we came to see.

Credit: sportslogos.net

In 1993 (almost immediately after what WAS the most recent successful era in Reds history) let's just say that the Reds got a little pinstripe crazy. It extended to the away uniform, & that's where the classic hat went to hide. Instead, the home fans got this: A pinstriped hat to match the pinstriped uniforms. I don't know about you, but to me, this is a slam dunk. It was unique, it made the Reds stand out, and it still had a bit of an old time charm to it that made it one of my favorite baseball looks.

Of course, this wasn't exactly perfect. As good of a design as it was on paper, it wasn't the best idea for that time on the field. As some of you may have know, you take a hot Cincinnati summer & add into it the effect of Riverfront Stadium's astroturf making the temperature & field level even hottter, and what do you get? Sweat. The players' sweat led to the stripes running, and by the mid-to-late innings of the game, the pinstriped hats would turn pink. Yeah, not a good look at all. But without the sweat making the colors run, it's a solid hat.

For 5 years, this was the look of that adorned the heads of Cincinnati Reds in the field of Riverfront Stadium. I say 'in the field,' because they still wore all-red batting helmets. Although the Reds are long done with this hat and pinstripes in general, I'm not. I still remember. Those hats were the only reason I played with the Reds in Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball on the Nintendo 64.  Those hats were the reason why the Reds were a third favorite team of mine, behind the Griffey Mariners & the Atlanta Braves. Good times, great memories, nice hat.