Houston Astros "Flashback Fridays" Throwback Lineup

So what's going on in Texas?

As has been announced, the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros are doing some extreme throwbacks for the 2012 season in celebration of their 40th and 50th birthdays respectively. Although the Texas Rangers have yet to really reveal their full uniforms, caps are excluded in pictures, the Houston Astros are definitely ready to roll with the throwbacks and are prepared to celebrate 50 years with style.

For the Houston Astros, we have been given almost no secrets in regards to the caps, which we are going to assume are New Era, but even if not they will still be reported on. The Houston Astros are picking 6 new throwbacks, one for each of the five decades of the Houston Astros and one representing the original team which were named the Colts.

The jerseys and caps seen above are in a nice time line, Colts are on the left and the decades increase as the jerseys move to the left.

About the moment that the Flashback Fridays were announced there immediately became concerns with the Houston Colt .45's and the pistol which would be represented on the jersey. When this was reported, MLB originally announced that the Houston Astros would not be permitted to wear the jerseys if the pistol was present, but ultimately left the decision up to the team which allowed sanity to dominate over political correctness, leaving the pistol on the jersey.

Regardless of the jersey tops, the 1962-1964 Colt .45s New Era cap appears to be a base blue with what would most likely be raised embroidery on the front panels of the cap reading ".45s" in orange, adorned with an orange button on the top of the crown.

Moving on just 3 years after their formation, the team became the Houston Astros which caused their uniforms to move to the "Shooting Star" which brought about new caps. These new caps for the brand new Astros are a simple navy blue cap much like the .45s, but the cap will be assumed to feature flat embroidery for the orange star that rests in the middle, and a raised "H" in white stitching for the script covering it, and much like the .45s cap the button on top will be orange.

Come the 1971 season, uniforms changed again to the infamous rainbow effect as seen above, but the caps are pretty much unchanged except for the colour inversion. This cap here features the base orange cap which would make this the only other full orange cap On-Field other than the Miami Marlins' home alternate. The logo features the regular star, but stitched in the dark blue and is also covered by the white raised embroidered "H".

Come 1980 the team moved its rainbow scheme from a horizontal stripe along the abdomen to going horizontal down the shoulders, this cap moves back a bit in years to the first Astros incarnation, but the only difference we will see in this New Era cap is the button on top, which is the same base navy blue rather than orange as seen in prior years.

By 1994 the team changed uniform schemes again, the new ones are a pure white with a new stylized and sci-fi like script on the front with a new shooting star logo in gold. The caps are once again a base navy blue and will feature a raised embroidered shooting star in gold on the front panels, but we do not get to see the gold brimmed caps that were also present in this era.

Philadelphia Phillies 2011 Civil Rights Game

This Philadelphia Phillies cap is a reproduction of their caps which were worn On-Field during a 21 year span from 1970-1991. The cap however was not worn throughout the season as other teams do with their Throwbacks, but this was worn during the 2011 Civil Rights game as represented on the embroidery on the left temple of the cap.

The Civil Rights Game was an annual exhibition game put on by Major League Baseball in order to embrace and honor the history of Civil Rights in the United States, but the game has since become an official event which affects the standings of the outcome. The Philadelphia Phillies battled the Atlanta Braves in Turner Field on May 15th, 2011 which resulted in a victory by the Atlanta Braves with a score of 3-2. What perplexes me over the uniform choice is why the throwbacks were selected in the first place, the first Civil Rights Game was played between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Cleveland Indians which caused both teams to wear throwbacks to Negro League uniforms, but the use of traditional throwbacks didn't start until a season later.

This Phillies cap is a base maroon which is a nice throwback and a great colour match to the originals which were worn from 1970 up until the 1991 season and the front logo utilizes the styled swooping “P” logo with full raised embroidery and white stitching. The overall cap looks fantastic from the stitching of the logo all of the way to the batterman on the back, but more attention could have been paid to the embroidery on the side of the cap which designates it for the occasion.

The embroidery on the front logo is done quite beautifully with the raised embroidery along with the swooping motion of the inner portion of the letter, the fact that they were able to make a throwback with such quality is an amazing feature in regards to current New Era Caps, and the fact that it was made in USA is also a testament to that. Although I think the logo looks great on the front of this cap, the main consensus believes that the logo is way too fat and large which takes away from the accuracy, but I believe this is a simple modernization of the original cap.

The embroidery on the side of the cap is lacking however, the quality of the script of “Civil Rights Game” is quite low and leads me to believe that I may remove this feature of the cap, no offense to any person of race or creed, but the cap could look better without the eyesore that has been stitched upon the left temple.

The rear batterman logo is something that is extremely new to this specific version of the cap since the Phillies retired this version of their uniform a few years before the MLB Batterman logo was featured on the rear of the cap, regardless of that fact it does not distract from the overall cap but more likely adds to it since they are such a staple of all New Era caps, let alone the On-Field Fitteds. The colour choices are a tone of blue and a dark red, the choices seem adequate but a light powder blue would have been much more appealing since they would have matched the uniform tops they wore as the throwback and what they wore originally.

Overall I think this is a very nice cap, I would love to acquire its partner being the 2011 Atlanta Braves but I have not put much of a hunt into it so far, but I could wait until this season's game when the Los Angeles Dodgers play the Braves for the 2012 Civil Rights Game. If you are able to find this cap I would highly recommend it, I was able to purchase it from the Philadelphia Phillies' online team shop and I assume they are still available for sale. Whether you're a true fan of the Phillies, a bandwagon fan, or even just a fan of the sport, a good throwback like this is hard to find and even harder to miss, don't let the opportunity pass you up if you should consider adding this to your collection!

1999-2006 Arizona Diamondbacks Reproduction by Lee's Sneakers

The Arizona Diamondbacks may have a little more representation on this blog than other teams do, and that is mainly due to my bias being that they are my favourite Major League Baseball team. The Diamondbacks' organization has been a huge portion of my life and I find myself following them daily even when the season is over. Ever since I started to collect New Era caps in 2000, I of course started with the Arizona Diamondbacks, and although my first cap was the purple Home cap my second was of course the Away cap. Buying the cap in the early 2000's it got a lot of use out me over the years but it was eventually retired due to its age.

After years without this cap I decided that I should attempt to replace it, after buying a few deadstock items on ebay I just found that I didn't wear it as much as I used to because it just didn't feel right on my head. After being spoiled with the new and more modern shapes of the 100% Polyester On-Field fitteds I became accustomed to the deeper crown I began to look into the many reproductions that were on the market. After not exactly giving up on my hunt, Lee's Sneakers on Facebook/Twitter posted a picture of their newest shipment which included an accurate reproduction of the Arizona Diamondbacks 1999-2006 away cap.

This Arizona Diamondbacks away cap is a pretty good representation of the caps worn On-Field from 1999-2006, it includes a white sweatband, grey underbrim, along with no New Era flag embroidered on the side of the cap. The cap is a base black which is constructed in 100% wool and includes the original copper “D” snake logo on the front two panels. The only inaccuracy of the cap is the rear batterman logo which include a framed raised embroidery. Going along with the aspect of the accuracies in which this cap does and does not partake in, it utilises the Official On-Field patch on the inside of the cap, the patches also on the interior contrast the colour choice by using black while on top of the white sweatband.

This Diamondbacks logo follows the accurate representation of the “D” logo which is a stylized version of a snake which is embroidered using a metallic copper thread. Inside of this snake there are several details which are prominent such as the diamond detail on the back of the snake which is embroidered in a turquoise thread. The snake is then outlined with a thick but thin raised embroidery in black which is then silhouetted by a thin layer of purple which helps to offset the polarity between the black base cap and the metallic copper threading.

The rear batterman logo is the only disappionting aspect of this cap. It functions as a half-assed version of the raised embroidery of the batterman logo which is worn on the modern day On-Field Fitted but is vastly different being that it is extremely flat and includes no rounded edging which is complimented by a black threaded frame around it. The detail of the batterman is extremely poor but has a better shape than a vast majority of these framed batterman logos contain. Other than the lack of detail and the incorrect version of the batterman, the colour selection is accurate by using the black and purple threading surrounding the pictorial embroidery.

Overall this is a very accurate representation of the original cap worn by the Diamondbacks from 1999-2006. Other than the overall modernized shape of the On-Field Fitted, this cap strays from its origins very softly such as the colours of the logo being that the turquoise colour that was on the original cap has since been discontinued, and the copper threading used is slightly less yellow than the original. If anyone wants to pick up this cap be sure to hit up Lee's Sneakers on Twitter @leesneakers23 or on Facebook!

Diamondbacks Custom from HatClub & My Fitteds

This Arizona Diamondbacks custom cap is the cap that I went to HatClub in Phoenix specifically to pick up, that is before I discovered another pair that I couldn't live without. This cap is a strange case though, being that since New Era has started putting “authentic” patches on the inside of certain customs as a workaround to also not having the New Era flag on the side. The strange part about this cap and the process of choices that awarded it the Authentic On-Field patch lack of the New Era flagis that this was NEVER a cap worn by the Diamondbacks On-Field.

Several months back I got an automated e-mail from MyFitteds advertizing caps in their “90's” style, which basically meant that the cap is 100% wool, includes a flat embroidered batterman logo, and the basic overall style of caps before they changed to 100% polyester in the 2007 season. When looking through the caps I was attempting to find myself another copy of the purple Diamondbacks Home cap from 1998-2006 but they were not available, the only Arizona caps for sale were the 1998 white crown alternate and this custom cap we see here. Since I was originally distraught about the inaccuracy of calling this a “throwback” or any kind of Authentic at all I decided not to buy it, but by the time I decided to pick it up MyFitteds were all sold out in my size. When I heard word that HatClub picked them up for distribution I decided that I definitely needed to get the cap, and picked one up a week later as I made a trip down to Phoenix, Arizona.

This Diamondbacks cap consists of a black crown with a concord brim and button on top, as stated above the cap also includes a grey underbrim which was used to mimic the style used up until the 2007 season. The cap is also 100% wool and also made in China, but the quality of the cap is extremely good and the only part that may be lacking is the overly raised portion of the logo's embroidery. This cap might be advertized as an On-Field fitted, but I think that this cap would have looked great if worn On-Field by the actual retro Diamondbacks, and based upon everyone’s apparent hatred of the all-purple caps this might have sold better.

The logo on the cap is a basic copy of the original Diamondbacks logo with the choice of colours, but purple and black threading for the outline of the “A” were inverted in order to contrast with the base black of the crown of the cap. The main thread colour used is turquoise which makes up the base of the “A” logo, this is inaccurate from the original version but this problem can not be avoided due to New Era discontinuing the thread that was originally used in this situation, so this thread was the nearest alternative to make the cap as accurate as possible. What really stood out to me with this cap was the fact that the logo is the correct size, being that so many custom Diamondbacks caps use the original oversized logo that was used in pre-production starting in 1995 prior to the team ever taking the field.

This Arizona Diamondbacks cap features a flat embroidered Batterman logo on the rear, this cap more or less lucked out in getting the flat embroidery due to its miss-categorization as an On-Field fitted. The stitching on the flat embroidery looks fantastic and shows up much better than many of the raised batterman logo caps, the flat stitching is able to avoid foam poking through completely. The colours used here are relatively familiar in regards to the Arizona Diamondbacks colour scheme, the black and purple batterman does not feature colours used on traditional Home caps for the original Arizona logo, but mimics the Away caps more accurately.

This cap is awesome, plain and simple, but I can also see why many people wouldn't like it and it would most likely cater to fans of the Arizona Diamondbacks before many other New Era or Baseball fans. The overall quality of the cap is really good, especially for a Chinese cap, but there are a few issues that I do have with it. The raised embroidery on the logo of the cap is definitely too tall and slightly too thick, but the thickness has been an issue with these Custom New Era caps using the Diamondbacks logo, so I guess this can be unavoidable at this point. The other issue I have with the cap is the position of the logo itself, it is about a centimeter too high but the position of the logo can vary between the caps so I might have just gotten one with poor placement.


HATCLUB PURCHASE LINK
MY FITTEDS PURCHASE LINK

2012 Baltimore Orioles Road

The 2012 Baltimore Orioles will have a brand new pair of caps to wear On-Field and they will be worn home and away respectively, these new caps will take a look back into the Orioles' history in which the team experienced its richest history which included six World Series appearances and three victories. The Baltimore Orioles recently have not been a very fortunate team as of late which began after the 1998 season where they failed to reach the post-season after two consecutive ALCS berths.

The Baltimore Orioles new New Era cap focuses mainly on the bird, this animated bird takes a blend of the caps worn by the team between the 1966 and 1988 seasons, and this 22 year run was a rich one for the city and team of Baltimore. The cap is a base black with a mandarin orange brim and button on top, being that this is the Away cap the crown is a solid black and does not include the two front white panels as the Home cap has. The bird on the front of this cap originated in the 1966 season which proved to be the Orioles' first World Series berth since moving to Baltimore and the first Championship in franchise history. The bird was highly animated in a cartoonish style which featured the bird wearing a ball cap and smirking back at the viewer, this cap replaced the original pictorial image of a crudely drawn bird worn on base black caps.

The logo on the front of this cap attempts to take the original style from as early as 1966 and blend it with styles of cap logos that the Orioles wore through the 1988 season. This logo seems to borrow more elements from the original 1966 logo being that it is wider and more round, but the beak and cap elements are substituted in from the 1975 logo. The only apparent new part of the cap is the brim and the logo on the front of it, the cap's brim is much more round and doens't curve upwards in an awkward way that the original caps did, and the logo utilizes the current Alternate logo.

The embroidery on the front seems extremely clean especially for such a complicated cap, the reason I call this complicated and clean is because the quality of embroidery has taken a huge step back recently and correct stitching and raising is something I have been learning to appreciate recently. This cap includes the simple cartoon bird but there are some differences that it has with the original logos, most notably the cap. The cap on this bird is curiously the Orioles' current Alternate cap with the “O's” logo scripted on the front, the embroidery once again did a fantastic job in revealing the details in such a relatively small portion of the cap. The embroidery overall is very well done and I suspect that this is because a majority of the logo is flat embroidery, the only raised portion is the beak and its slight outline which is very short; not much room for disaster here. The thick orange outline also differs from its predecessors being that it is nearly twice as thick as them, the reason it is stitched this way is because it helps to make the bird's logo beam off of the front two panels.

The rear batterman logo of this cap is extremely predictable, but what else could one expect with the Baltimore Orioles? Teams like this only have two predominant colours, and much like the San Francisco Giants there is little they can do with the colour selection for the accents of the batterman. The black accented with the orange could possibly be switched in order to put more of an emphasis on the more tropical colour to help it stand out more, but that may or may not be necessary since the purpose of the batterman is to be subtle in its own respect. I am not satisfied with the raised embroidery on the rear batterman however, but I can say this about 90% of the raised batterman logos I see on the Polyester caps, quality has gone down extremely and the fact that so much of the raised foam material sticks out from between threads lays testament to the fact that the rear batterman should go back to being flat embroidery.

Being that the biggest thing the Orioles are known for currently is their fantastic part of Camden Yards, ownership most likely wanted to help spark interest in the team again through the process of changing caps to those worn by the teams that took the city of Baltimore to the Championship Series and beyond. The cap seen here might very well be an attempt to help remind the fans and the ownership that the uniforms worn on the field can help put more of a sense of tradition into the club and its fans, but although the encyclopedia diagram style bird is retired (for now), don't rule out seeing it return as an alternate in the near future.

2004-2005 Toronto Blue Jays Home Cap

The Toronto Blue Jays have been a team with an identity crisis ever since the infamous 1994 Players Strike which effectively canceled the remainder of the season. The two-time defending World Champion Blue Jays had lost a lot of community support much as the rest of the teams in the sport had seen, and the team went in a drastic direction and decided to mix up their uniform and logo scheme in order to attempt to bring interest back into the team and the game as a whole. Their identity crisis was evidently capped by four main uniform and logo reformations before finally settling on their 2012 designs, but the uniforms that made the most drastic change began in 2004 with the “J-Bird” logo.

The J-Bird logo was introduced in the 2004 season and two new caps were introduced, shown here is the Home Cap which was worn from 2004-2005, this cap is only available in the 100% Wool style and utilizes a graphite base for both the crown and the brim of the cap. This cap was quickly retired however and replaced with the black version of the cap which was previously worn as the Away Cap. The bright logo on the front of the cap beams out quite well and doesn't clash that much with the base colour of the cap, something that can't be said about the former Away now Home Cap.

This new Toronto Blue Jays “J-Bird” logo is seemingly one of the more popular caps in regards to cap sales or style, regardless of the team's actual fanbase or following. This logo includes a stylized slanted “J” which is of flat embroidery and is stitched in a manner to attempt to give it depth without raising by using white accented with silver stitching. The script on the logo is shelled with a black outline which allows the the blue jay's “action post” beak and head beaming out of it the curve of the slanted script. The bird's embroidery is rather unimpressive due to its lack of real depth through the motion of stitching, it only takes advantage of better stitching when looking at the top of the bird's head in order to create different levels of feathers through angling the stitching one way and then conflicting it in another. The entire pictorial and script logo is surrounded with a thick blue outline which is seemingly the same colour choice as the bird itself and this outline is itself surrounded by a thin white outline of its own.

The use of the multiple outlines upon outlines is an interesting design choice, but the colour choices are extremely unimpressive since their colour palette appeared to be extremely limited. The Toronto Blue Jays made a bold move by removing the “Blue” from Blue Jays, but attempting to slide it in anywhere they can really doesn't justify the fact that they dismantled 27 years of team history which involved around the Blue Jay and the Canadian Maple Leaf.

The rear batterman logo on the cap implores the use silver stitching accompanied by the blue stitching, the colour choices work seemingly well for the cap due to the base colour now being grey it reflects the silver stitching quite nicely. The accented blue stitching is an unfortunate last-ditch effort to attempt to keep the colour blue into the Blue Jays logo and colour scheme which can be said for the entire tenure of the 2004-2011 Blue Jays uniforms as a whole.

I purchased this cap in Toronto while visiting in 2005 so I was really excited to pick up this cap since this was my first time out of the United States and I thought that this cap would be a great souvenir to take back to the United States with me. This cap was really fresh when it came out but it didn't exactly age too well when true Blue Jays fans were put into the equation, but the real eye opener to the organization was when the throwbacks were worn and the reception they received because of it, and it was then these caps were thought of as having a limited lifetime. The fact that this grey cap has been retired since 2005 will make it difficult to find for anyone, especially since it was such a popular cap with the popular culture, but reproductions are not that hard to find especially when companies like HatClub and MyFitteds strive to supply accurate reproductions. Any fans of the Black version of this cap may have a little luck finding it currently due to its recent retirement, but if you want these caps you better get them before they're gone.

Cleveland Indians Road/Alternate

The Cleveland Indians have had a long history involving their logo of Chief Wahoo which is a caricature of a Native American which originated as a shoulder patch in 1928 but was not worn on the cap until 1954-1957 before it was used primarily starting with the 1986 season. Chief Wahoo has been a deep part of the Cleveland Indians' team history, but its presence has not been perceived well by a portion of the Native American population which has lead to several protests which started on opening day of the infamous 1994 season.

Prior to the use of Chief Wahoo in any incarnation, the Cleveland Indians wore simple blue caps with a block style white “C” located on the front panels, and starting with the 2008 season the Cleveland Indians began to wear a cap similar to the original, but reported by the Indians' president the decision was not to combat the possible racism expressed by the logo, but was to help the team's image by not wearing the logo primarily on the road and to give the fans a cap option if they were not comfortable wearing the Chief Wahoo logo.

Whereas Chief Wahoo is worn primarily at home this new New Era cap was designed and worn starting in the 2008 season as a Home Alternate, but starting with the 2011 season this cap was retired for Home Alternate use and was then used primarily as the Away cap and Chief Wahoo was then the alternate. This cap is a base Navy Blue which is surprisingly darker than the traditional Heather Grey in which they wear as a home with a scarlet brim or the away alternate which is solid Heather Grey.

The reason that the caps use two different colour blues is a mystery to me, but the choices may have had something to do with the focus of the main logo through the background choice, and this can be noted in some of the original Chief Wahoo caps using an almost-black material that made the logo really pop out with its flat embroidery, but the lighter colour allows it to blend in slightly better. The darker Navy used on this Away/Alternate cap most likely utilized the darker colour to compliment the raised embroidery to give the stylized “C” the powerful look it required without any kind of outline, much like the correlation between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees cap script.

This Cleveland Indians New Era cap is designed with a stylized block “C” logo that is embroidered in scarlet stitching. This raised embroidery is thick and powerful which allows itself to become the dominant element of the cap through the process of putting the focus on the central script while using modest colour choices which compliment the team's dominant scheme which have been used somewhat exclusively since the team was named the Indians in 1915. By looking back to the teams roots of the very early years, the team has effectively made a throwback cap while at the same time modernizing it much like the Toronto Blue Jays recently did, but through using script rather than a pictorial logo.

The rear batterman logo falls into the category of “navy blue and red” which allows the logo to be a direct copy of the traditional MLB logo rather than the team's designers having the opportunity to be relatively creative by using colours that do not necessarily reflect the primary colours of the team. The logo on the back of this cap does fit in very well with the design of the cap by using a subtle design in a powerful way.

When the Cleveland Indians began to wear this cap as an alternate Home cap in 2008, it was a little frustrating to me due to the fact that being a baseball fan I am extremely against any real kind of change to teams or a change that would remove any historical aspect, and I assumed this logo was made to slowly phase out the Chief Wahoo logo. The basic fact about the Chief Wahoo logo is that it wasn't up until fairly recently in baseball history that they began to use it exclusively on their caps, but looking back at older baseball cards of mine I began to recall the stylized “C” logo which looked like Native American text in itself, and after a little more research I was able to discover that the “C” logos have dominated the team's cap throughout its history.

Whether the new “C” Logos replace the old Chief Wahoo logo is fine with me at the time being, but that being said I would prefer to see the Chief Wahoo logo stay within the team's uniform through the Home Cap, and Alternate cap, or the use of a shoulder patch as it was originally intended. When it comes down to it the logo in itself can easily be seen as being racist when looking at it without the filter we all might have, the caricature look does exaggerate some elements of the Native American but does not do it in a malicious manner. The best way to really make a good correlation would be the Atlanta Braves who no longer use their Native American caricatures but still heavily use Native American elements.

Looking at the Indians' Chief Wahoo logo while comparing it to dozens of other caps worn in the minor leagues, it is hard to see why the logo would be considered racist due to the level of caricatures used throughout the design process. Polls state that 91% of Native Americans approve or don't mind the Chief Wahoo or Washington Redskins team names or logos, but does that make it right? Or should lumberjacks nationwide all be offended by the Williamsport Crosscutters' logo?

2012 Toronto Blue Jays

The Toronto Blue Jays have been one of my favourite teams in baseball and I've been following them fairly closely since the late 90's, but unfortunately for the team that's when things started to get weird. Although people are familiar with the team's most recent uniforms, most people just can't help but think of their original logos and uniforms when they look at the team, and this is how people assume they should be and fulfills the comfort level for the fanbase. Much like the San Diego Padres, the fanbase in Toronto would in a majority wear the old logos, jerseys, and caps over the current uniforms, so by the 2012 season the team gave the fans what they have been asking for.

The Toronto Blue Jays have had a rich history in Toronto and after going back-to-back in World Championships in 1992 and 1993 the team was hurt fairly badly due to the 1994 MLBPA strike that struck the sport causing the last 6 weeks of the season and the cancellation of the World Series. The Toronto Blue Jays are one of the more well known and more successful expansion teams that have come about in Baseball, and they continue to fall into the shadows of the American League East.

Following the strike attendance was down and the team felt that they needed to change the uniforms slightly to get more people interested in the team and a few slight changes were made to over emphasize the Canadian Maple Leaf, but unfortunately the uniform changes weren't enough to take the bad taste of baseball greed out of their mouths and the team continued to stumble. The team was more than less thought of as a failure which didn't allow them to finish anywhere better than 3rd place in the American League Eastern Division, and much like the previous late decade there was little interest in the team.

Following the 2003 season, the uniforms were such a failure that they were changed immediately, the fanbase felt disconnected and the ownership wasn't doing much to keep them interested in the team. Following roaring Steroid Era in baseball it seemed like the Toronto Blue Jays needed to change their image to a juicing bird holding a bat with the Canadian Maple Leaf tattooed on his arm; by the way, since when did birds have arms? The general consensus in Toronto and it's fanbase hated the uniforms but they looked at them with a blind eye because they just felt that the uniforms weren't that far off, but weren't so drastic to get truly upset about them although the uniforms were not what they were used to or what they wanted. With a new year in place the team attempted to change the uniforms once again, but this was a complete uniform reconstruction that removed all history of the original uniforms and created a more stylish and modern look. The fans were no longer interested, the team had a difficult time getting people into the stadium and the Blue Jays were hurting more than a large majority of the MLB teams.

For the first time the Blue Jays walked onto the field without the Canadian Maple Leaf on their uniform at all on Opening Day for the 2004 season, this was extremely disturbing to the Toronto Fan Base, especially since the Expos left the nation two years later; by 2009 the team began wearing a Maple Leaf patch on their jersey shoulder. These new uniform logos consisted of a sharp Blue Jay's bird head coming out of the stylized “J” which led many of the old time fans to call them the J-Birds, which hints at what they thought of the team. The original hats that were worn for home were a base grey and the away were a base black, but this only lasted for two seasons in which the grey was retired and the black was made their home and away cap, and a stylized “T” logo was made as an away alternative cap.

During the later part of the decade the team began to wear throwbacks to the uniforms prior to 1997 and they were a huge hit for the team, the fanbase loved them and for the first time in Toronto history the stadium began to fill up once again. Following the 2011 season the team promised to put Blue back into Blue Jays, and that's exactly what they had done. No longer were the dominant colours Grey and Black, but were once again Blue and White. The uniform scheme borrowed heavily from their original roots and modernized them creating one of the freshest caps in the MLB and many consider this to be the best On-Field cap that is currently on the market. The cap is a base Navy Blue and utilizes a familiar logo on the front, which is a modernized version of the original team logo.

The front embroidery of the cap is one of the freshest currently in baseball, it utilizes many different levels to create multiple details that would have been previously ignored in earlier years. The bird's blue jay is outlined with a white boarder which flows into the head of the bird, which creates three different layers of stylized feathers that are held in place between the raised embroidery of the black beak and neck area along with the blue crest. The Canadian Maple Leaf is also raised embroidery and tits itself right behind the bird's head, this portion of the cap also utilizes its own white outline much like the logo all together, but it's outline is layered higher than the original and overlaps rather than blends. This style of embroidery permits the Canadian Maple Leaf to subtly emit its dominance in the logo without over-sizing it or giving it strange placements much like the past few uniform changes.

The 2012 Toronto Blue Jays cap quickly became one of my favourite MLB On-Field Caps and I hunted for the cap up until I finally was able to pre-order it on the website Minor Leagues Major Dreams (item #9432512). Being a Toronto Blue Jays fan it is extremely refreshing to see the logo, especially because the previous uniform incarnations were either downright stupid and/or embarrassing. Being in Las Vegas and a current season ticket holder of the Triple-A Affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays, the Las Vegas 51s, the upcoming season should be extremely exciting to see the new logo take over the current team and hopefully spark interest in changing Las Vegas' current team and uniform.

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.

2012 Seattle Mariners Alternate

Now I know I'm a little late to the game with this announcement, but I am finally back online with a brand new PC, so I will be able to update regularly once again. However, the Seattle Mariners have announced that they will be re-releasing a version of their cap that they have been known to wear for years now.

Since the Seattle Mariners changed to the uniforms they are currently known for in 1993, they have used the solid Navy Blue base crown with the teal brim up until the 2003 season, starting that year the entire cap went solid Navy Blue. A few weeks ago the team had announced that they would be bringing their original cap with the teal brim out of retirement and will be used as an alternate starting in 2012.

On another note, the 2012 season will be the Seattle Mariners' 35th anniversary, and as expected the team will be wearing patches on their jersey arms to commemorate this milestone as most teams do who have such anniversaries.

2012 Toronto Blue Jays

At long last, the Toronto Blue Jays have finally returned "Blue" to Toronto. By putting the word "Blue" back into the Blue Jays, this will usher in a new era for Toronto and all of their fans. The Blue Jays got a complete makeover which involved brand new uniforms and brand new New Era caps that will be worn starting in the 2012 season. The changes basically take the shape of familiarity of a compilation of the Blue Jays uniforms from the 70s up until the 90s, and blending them with a style of old and modernity.

The New Era cap that will be worn by the Toronto Blue Jays starting next season will feature a solid blue base cap which covers the crown and bill, and is featured with the traditional Blue Jay bird complimented by the red Canadian Maple Leaf. The cap will break Toronto's current tradition of having multiple caps for home and away use, and that is because this cap will be used in and outside of Toronto exclusively all season long.

The uniforms for the 2012 season and on will include 3 new jerseys, a traditional white jersey which lists the team name and a grey jersey for away games framing the city name of Toronto on the front. There will also be a solid blue alternate jersey which was all ready announced which will be used for both home and away use.

Home

Road

Home/Road Alternate

The cap and jerseys for batting practice/spring training have also been completely changed, the cap will be a 39Thirty model of the On-Field 59Fifty, and the jersey shows the regular Warm-Up adaptation of most jerseys.

The changes to the Toronto Blue Jays this off season are momentous in the history of this ballclub, and most likely will be unchanged for decades to come. The changes bring their team's history back from obscurity and will help to reunite the fans of old with the identity crisis that has plagued the city and team of Toronto the past decade.