Tucson Sidewinders

Being an Arizona Diamondbacks fan, this cap was a huge part of my childhood and was a cap that I always wanted to get my hands on. I grew up in Las Vegas, NV and often attended Las Vegas Stars and 51's MiLB games, and I currently am a Season Ticket Holder, so the Diamondbacks' Triple-A Affiliate was always something that had interested me greatly, and I was also a die-hard Sidewinders fan and always wanted one of their caps, but by the time the Sidewinders left Tucson, it appeared that it was too late. The internet allowed me to do the required hunting though, it was a lot harder than it sounds but after 3 years of hunting I finally came upon it and I snagged it up immediately.

The Tucson Sidewinders began their organization as the Tucson Toros in 1969 as part of the Pacific Coast League, this team went through 5 different Major League Affiliates prior to the emergence of the Arizona Diamondbacks in Phoenix, and thus the Tucson Sidewinders were born. When the Arizona Diamondbacks moved in, it was natural that the team wanted the affiliate close to them, and Tucson was a perfect candidate. The team evidently had its name changed from the Toros to the Sidewinders, in an attempt to tie their names together by basing them both off of rattlesnakes local to the area.

Come the 1998 Season when the Arizona Diamondbacks had their first year, the Tucson Toros finally became the Sidewinders and were a strong force in the PCL South for the beginning of the next decade and saw many famous veterans from their MLB affiliate take stints down in the minors. However after constant years of low attendance over location and playing field maintenance at Tucson Electric Park, the Tucson Baseball LLC made the decision to sell the Sidewinders and the team eventually moved to Reno and became the Reno Aces.

The cap is a basic flat black that is complimented with a copper snake with turquoise diamonds on the back, this snake has a single coil that wraps in a loop and points up to reveal it's rattle located at the tip of the tail. The threading on the snake is rather unimpressive when it comes to comparing it to other caps in the minor leagues. The thing that really strikes me about this cap is the way that the logo really sticks out on the base black cap, and this is caused due to the simple fact that New Era utilized a metallic thread on the copper much like they did on the Arizona Diamondbacks road cap of the same era, and these two caps show a great amount of similarities.

The caps both utilize black caps as the base along with copper threading that makes the logo really stand out from the background, and they both have turquoise coloured diamonds radiating from the back of the snake. The sidewinder logo is however much more detailed and more fluent than the Diamondbacks' due to the fact that the “D” on the road cap appears to be a little more forced due to the sharp turn and swoop to complete the typographical image that is trying to be expressed; the detail has since been repaired on the team's current uniform representations.

This is a great cap for any fan of the Arizona Diamondbacks, but it evidently may be uninteresting or bland for a casual baseball or cap fan, or just anyone from the Tucson or Arizona area. The details on the cap are fairly static and doesn't appear to express any great breakthroughs in embroidery in regards to detail.