St. Louis Cardinals Alternate

The St. Louis Cardinals are baseballs most recent Champions by defeating the Texas Rangers in a compelling 7-Game series that will be remembered as one of the best played series in recent memory. The St. Louis Cardinals are one of the most storied franchises in the National League which were created in 1882 as the St. Louis Brown Stockings, but switched their name to the Cardinals a decade later in 1892. The Cardinals have been the most successful National League team when involved in the World Series, attending 18 times and winning 11 of them, two out of three in the past decade to cap that.

The St. Louis Cardinals have always been known for their front jersey logo which consists of a baseball bat with two Cardinal birds perched on both ends, which gives them their nickname “redbirds” or “birds on a bat.” The logo which the cardinals are most known for have been it consistently since 1922 which replaced the interlocking “STL” logo on their jersey front. The generic New Era cap for the Cardinals has consisted of the interlocking “STL” logo, but up until the 2000 season the Cardinals introduced a new New Era cap to go along with their traditional red and blue Home and Away caps, and this new alternate utilizes the famous “Bird on a Bat” logo which the team has been famous for since the early 20's.

This Alternate St. Louis Cardinals New Era cap consists of a Navy Blue crown with a Scarlet Red brim, the choices of colours blend the Cardinals traditional Home and Away caps, but utilize the traditional Alternate Bird on a Bat logo. The cap is worn sparingly throughout the season but is worn as a Home Alternate and does not have a specific jersey to go along with it as most Alternate caps do. Going through the years of alternates through major league baseball, many of them are just as forgettable as this cap, and the reason that it may be is because Major League Teams often rely on script for their caps rather than pictorial representations, so this cap is often ignored or even unknown to many fans outside of the St. Louis Cardinals fandom.

The front logo on the cap consists of the St. Louis Cardinals bird which is perched on the center of a baseball bat pointing to the left. This bird on a bat logo is outlined with quite embroidery which helps it to pop out on the cap slightly more than it might without the embroidery, but the detail of the cap is done quite well especially with the use of layered feather-like raised embroidery with the bird. The raised embroidery is not necessarily raised like a Washington Nationals logo, but uses multiple layers of stitching to create the layers instead of stitching over the compressed foam as most caps do. This cap's lineage through the use of embroidery is most likely stemmed from the famous Orioles bird which was introduced in 1989 but was not perfected until 1998.

The rear batterman logo might be thought of as boring to some, but the batterman logo consists of the Red and Navy blue which both compliment the St. Louis Cardinals colours but at the same time compliment the true colours of the batterman logo. The use of the batterman logo as the original and pure MLB batterman logo makes caps look much better but at the same time it can limit their ability to be unique in their own respects, and this conflict has been most noted in the recent incarnations of the New York Yankees and Washington Nationals On-Field Fitteds.

When I was in Fanzz looking at new New Era caps, I had never even thought of purchasing this hat until I looked at it and thought “wow, I want this.” I've been looking at these caps daily for over a decade now, and I don't know what kept me from viewing this cap and allowing it to have the affect on me as it did two months ago. This New Era cap is definitely one of the coolest caps worn in the Major Leagues, but it unfortunately isn't worn that often On-Field due to the fact that it is an Alternate that may be worn once a homestand. The thing that I love most about the cap is the logo itself on the front, I think that embroidery on the logo looks great and the slightly cartoonish bird looks much sharper than the Baltimore Orioles cap which I have criticized over looking way too realistic, almost as if it was clipped out of the Encyclopedia.

Pittsburgh Pirates 40th Anniversary of the 1971 World Series

The 2011 Season quickly became a year to member in Pittsburgh due to the Pirates early success, but their mid-season drop-off continued to have fueled the fire for fan support in the Steel City. Not only were the Pirates relevent for the first time in nearly two decades, but the Pirates were also ready to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the World Series in which they beat the Baltimore Orioles in 7 games thus awarding Roberto Clemente his first and only World Series MVP award.

On June 21, 2011 the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Baltimore Orioles were matched up in Interleague play, this matchup created the perfect opportunity for the Pittsburgh Pirates to create a Turn Back The Clock uniform and New Era cap to commemorate their victorious winning of the 1971 World Series. The Pirates began the game with an opening ceremony which celebrated Hall of Fame Pirate Bill Mazeroski along with Pirates greats Bill Virdon, Gene Alley, Al Oliver, Bob Robertson, Dave Giusti, and Bruce Kison. The seven former players donned the throwbacks which the current players were wearing to celebrate their victory, and emerged from the dugout which allowed the fans of the past and the present to witness the winning history of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Upon seeing this cap the first time I really hated the way it looked, to me it looked extremely bland and boring and just plain ugly, but seeing it more and more made me appreciate it a lot more than that first impression. Giving the cap some real justice, this Pittsburgh Pirates throwback is stunning and the Gold crown with the black script and brim flow fantastic and the colour choices make it one of the most unique caps in the Major Leagues without going out of their way to be unique like the Marlins recently did. When I finally decided that I wanted this cap, I didn't exactly go out of my way to find it, but rather let it come to me through the process of going to the mall all of the time with my girlfriend, I knew eventually one of the Lids we went to would have my size in stock.

Outside of how cool it looks now, in 2012, the one concern of mine was how well does this cap match up to the original caps from 1971. Not being around in 1971 I wasn't able to really say one way or another, but searching the internet I was able to find some images that helped me to decipher this cap from the ones worn four decades ago. Right off of the bat I knew one inaccuracy was going to be apparent, and that's the use of the batterman logo on the rear of the cap, but New Era seemingly loves to place these on their Throwbacks, but I can't complain that they put it on there because they didn't try to hide it the asinine way they botched the 1980's Mariners Throwbacks.

While viewing a picture of the Pirates former manager Danny Murtaugh in the 1971 World Series, we can see that the underbrim is definitely green, but that was something to be expected when looking into caps earlier than the mid-1990's. Being that the rest of the On-Field Fitteds have black underbrims it was more economical for New Era to create the black underbrims for these, being that they would need to obtain the correct Kelly Green material to create the underbrims.

Pittsburgh Pirates starter Steve Blass has a little something to say about the crown colour of the cap though, but skipper Danny Murtaugh disagrees. Going beyond the base colour of the cap, the front logo can be considered to be inaccurate due to the embroidery being raised on this current cap, but did we honestly think that New Era would make the cam with flat embroidery? Based on the two pictures of the ballcaps, did the Pirates wear two different caps? I'm going to go ahead and call this miscue a possibility, but I would really like to know what the caps truly looked like since my baseball card collection doesn't span earlier than the early 1980's.

Inaccuracies:

• Use of Batterman Logo
• Black Underbrim
• Possible base colour inaccuracy

Going beyond the historical aspects of the cap I'm going to look into the quality of the current cap, the Pirates' “P” logo on the front is extremely sharp and is one of the freshest logos in the game, and the colour choices make it really stand out on the cap in the chosen Earth tones. The raised embroidery is done extremely well and matches up perfectly to the current On-Field Fitteds of the Pittsburgh Pirates' basic home cap, which leads me to suspect that New Era handled this as a Fashion Cap Custom as an On-Field Fitted. The fact that New Era didn't even bother to make the logo more accurate to the 1971 version shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, and this is because New Era's quality control doesn't exactly believe in accurate throwbacks and the original logo wasn't that far off of what it currently is today.

The batterman logo on the rear of the cap is an addition that was not on the original cap, but regardless of that the embroidery on the rear looks extremely sharp especially with the colour choice and the embroidery involved due to its cleanliness. The Batterman is accented with the team's current colours of Black and Yellow, but the fact that it is there in the first place would annoy any Pirates fan who wanted an accurate representation of the original Pirates cap. The fact that it is there doesn't bother me though, as I said before, New Era seemed to put more care and attention into this cap than they did the Turn Back The Clock 1980's Mariners cap, the use of blue stitching on the batterman to hide the logo is about as ridiculous as when they try to hide the New Era flag on the side of the Fashion Cap Customs.

This cap will quickly become one of my favourites and will go into my rotation immediately, and that's not something I would have ever suspected when I saw this cap on the shelf the first or even the fifth time I came upon it. The use of the Gold crown makes it extremely unique without being too flashy like the Marlins' Away cap or without being too dull like the Padres' Sunday caps.

Beautiful cap, if you find it, get it before it's gone.

Oakland Athletics Road

Being a fan of the Arizona Diamondbacks, I have found myself half-way rooting for the Oakland Athletics over the past half decade, and the reason is due to the recent trade history that these two teams have had. Over the past several seasons, the Diamondbacks have made many trades and other than the Detroit Tigers, the Oakland Athletics have beefed up their roster with many players from the Diamondbacks starters and farm team players; such as the massive deal that sent Dan Haren to Arizona and Brett Anderson and Carlos Gonzalez to Oakland. Just this past offseason a 5 player swap occurred between the two teams which sent Trevor Cahill and Craig Breslow to Arizona, and blue chip prospect Jarrod Parker, along with Collin Cowgill, and Ryan Cook went to Oakland.

The Athletics history of green and gold has been around since day one in Oakland, in 1968. They moved into the Bay Area that year which pushed a little on the Giants territory, making the region the smallest populated to have two baseball teams, but the Oakland Athletics found a good footing in their city winning three consecutive World Series titles in 1972, 1973, and 1974 which made them the only team in MLB history to achieve the status of a Dynasty other than the New York Yankees.

This Oakland Athletics cap is the current On-Field Fitted that is produced, but the coloration has been used by the team ever since the forgettable season of 1994. From the team's formation by moving to Oakland in 1968, they wore their traditional Kelly Green cap with the Gold brim both home and away, but moving towards the 1993 season the team decided to create a specific Away hat, which along with the Home version of the cap that year the darker green was introduced, but the away hat was a base forest green crown and brim with white script. A season later the team made the decision to slightly alter the away caps that they had introduced the season before, the alteration simply replaced the white script with gold which represented the team's colours much better than the previous.

This cap employs the modern Dark Green material as implored by New Era and the stitching on the front is a non-metallic gold thread. The stitching used is very clean and when raised is only done in one layer. The raised embroidery is extremely clean and doesn't have any issues that I have described previously with the Kansas City Royals, and the way the raised embroidery is done makes it especially clean. The raised embroidery uses a rounded finish which really makes it pop off of the cap rather than being relatively flat as some logos can be.

The batterman logo on the rear may have unintentionally derived a throwback to the original Athletics caps by utilising a Kelly Green thread along with the non-metallic gold, by using these two choices of thread the team inadvertently created this throwback by trying to avoid a repetition of colours that might disappear when comparing the batterman logo to the base cap material.

The Oakland Athletics road cap is always one that I have been interested in acquiring, but I do believe that the cap would be much better had it been an original wool cap rather than the modern day 100% On-Field Polyester. I can't really say why I would prefer it in wool over polyester, but there is definitely a mystique about the Wool caps sometimes that the modern day Polyester caps lack. The Old English “A” located on the front of the cap is classic and could never be replaced, but I do believe that the cap would slightly improve if the team would the lower case “s” would be switched to an Old English font rather than the unimpressive Arial font it currently uses.

Kansas City Royals

The Kansas City Royals have always been a team that I have been interested in and their history with me is a particularly interesting one. With the video game Home Run King on the Nintendo GameCube, I would often put on two random teams to play each other while I was preoccupied with something else, and one afternoon I remember picking the Detroit Tigers to play at Kauffman Stadium against the Kansas City Royals. This game was particularly interesting due to the fact that the two computer teams refused to score what-so-ever, and hours later I found myself amazed that the game was into the 27th inning with still no runs scored. I can't recall the way the game ended, but the Kansas City Royals were the team that was victorious, and ever since then I have been interested in following the team to some extent.

The modern day On-Field Fitted for the Kansas City Royals is one of the more simple caps worn by teams in the MLB, and with the retirement of the team's powder blue Alternate, this will be the Royals cap from game 1 to game 162. The cap is a simple base blue with a white button located on the top, along with that the rear batterman logo utilises a bright blue stitching complemented by metallic gold stitching on the right. This cap is one of the more storied ones in regards to expansion teams, this cap has been left relatively unchanged since the team's original formation in 1969 other than the implementation of the batterman logo that all teams eventually were introduced to.

Much like with the more modern New Era 59Fifty caps, the embroidery is raised much higher than it has been in previous years, another alteration in the raised embroidery that I notice when compared to my late 90's Diamond Collection Royals cap is that the attached “K” and “C” have a slight depression between them rather than being a straight connection as noted in the Diamond Collection. This cap was particularly difficult for me to find but it wasn't because of lack of stock, but was due to the tightness of the stitching of the front edges; stitching often would not be tight enough and would droop, so finding the perfect cap was difficult. An interesting fact that I noticed with the quality of stitching on the front of this cap, is that for the first time ever I discovered a cap in which the Chinese embroidery is superior to the American. The cap pictured here is an American cap, but the stitching on a Chinese one that I saw recently had much tighter stitching and there was no sagging of individual threads.

The colour choices of the rear embroidered batterman logo flow very well, using the historical reference of the team's name “royals,” which has nothing to do with royalty but has everything to do with seasonal south Missouri Rodeo, the use of gold is used to represent the ill-faded monarchy that the team has attempted to exploit for the past several decades.

The Kansas City Royals have one of the classiest caps in baseball and this is due to their simplicity and familiarity with the previous generation of players and fans in the Kansas and Missouri area. The cap was definitely worth my money and will definitely be put into my cap rotation, I regret not getting my replacement due to the retirement of my old 6-3/4 Diamond Collection from the late 90's. In general I tend to prefer the 100% wool version of caps, but I tend to prefer the look, style, and feel of this Royals cap in the 100% polyester along with the black underbrim.

100% Wool Texas Rangers

The loss of Wool Caps for On-Field Fitteds have been crippling to some members of the New Era Cap community, being that contrary to New Era's beliefs the cap's materials do make a difference with the fan base and even certain players. Back in 2007 when New Era switched the On-Field Fitteds from 100% wool to 100% polyester there were quite a few stragglers, and on occasion some players continue to wear Wool caps on the field and many fans are crying for New Era to at least give the option to have the caps be produced in Wool again.

When it comes to the stragglers there are two simple options for them to acquire the caps they want:

1. The first option would be for them to find an original cap that is either new or unused, these can be found on websites like eBay or Mickey's Place, but once sizes are sold out it is nearly impossible for them to be restocked.
2. The other option would be to get some reproductions, the reproductions are often made in China and can have the New Era flag embroidered on the side, but in some more rare cases reproductions can be found without the flags on the side.

Growing up a fan of baseball but not a fan of any specific team I followed Nolan Ryan quite a bit in my younger days, and his final few years helped to cement my fandom in the Texas Rangers organization, but my love of the Rangers barely extended outside of the Ryan years but the fires were rekindled during the 2010 season. After getting a 2010 World Series patch cap in polyester it quickly became one of my favourite caps to wear regardless of the result of the World Series, but the follow that season I began to see myself wearing a majority of Wool caps over Polyester due to the fact that they naturally formed to the head better than the Polyester caps, so the hunt was on. It really didn't take me too long to find the cap I wanted, Minor Leagues Major Dreams luckily had one in my size and in stock, so when the time came I swiped it along with several others that I was looking to add to my collection.

Based on the tags, this Texas Rangers hat most likely is from the 2005-2006 seasons and has the correct domed structure of the front and back panels that are currently worn today, so the depth of the hat is adequate to what I was looking for. The 100% Wool feels great and unhindered by the storage process of the backstock that MLMD had, it was extremely clean and had zero dust or stains, and most importantly it was brand new with the original stickers still in tact. Much like the caps worn today, this New Era is a base dark blue with a red button on top which adds to it's aesthetic value, there many fans might disagree that a red or white button might be necessary arguing that it would possibly be distracting from the front logo embroidery.

The embroidery looks great on the cap, the raised embroidery on the front is one of my favourites since it doesn't merely raise in one single level but is softly rounded on the edges, the stitching is also extremely fresh and doesn't roll off the raised foam like other caps have been known to. The red embroidery on the underside is slightly raised due to multiple thread layers, but does not lay flat like hats in the previous decade have.

The flat embroidery in the back was very important to me and always is when I look to acquire a 100% wool cap or at least with reproductions, but since this cap is a 100% authentic from the last few seasons of Wool caps, the embroidery is flat and very well accomplished. The part of the rear embroidery that I enjoy the best is the choice of colours that have been used, since the Rangers' team colours are all ready red and blue it was an easy decision for the team to choose these to accent the back of their hat, which permits them to use the original MLB logo as should be worn on all caps rather than mixing the personal team colours back there.

This New Era Cap will quickly become one of my favourites that I will wear quite often, but I don't think that it will be enough to retire my 2010 World Series Cap any time soon. I will be watching the Texas Rangers take on the Chicago Cubs this Spring Training on St. Patrick's Day, so the only decision I will have will be which one should I wear? If anyone has the opportunity to get their team's cap in the original 100% Wool, I would definitely recommend it, the Polyester is great but you can't replace the original material that New Era On-Field Caps were.

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.

Miami Marlins Road

I apologize for not posting in a few days, but I have been doing finals at school and whatnot, now that they are all done I'll have more time to put towards my blog.

As we all know the Florida Marlins are a thing of the past and the Miami Marlins have become the new force to be reckoned with in the National League East. With the change we saw some pretty drastic uniform alterations which completely changed their colour scheme from a Black and Teal oriented scheme to something much more “Miami.”

When the caps came out I looked everywhere for them in stores and online, but unfortunately only the flagship stores and local Florida locations were able to get them, and slowly they trickled out to stores such as Lids by November but hit the online MLB Shop stores by October, and through the internet I was able to acquire the Away Cap.

The Away Cap for the Miami Marlins is a base Orange which New Era describes as “Mandarin,” and the logo on the front is one of the few MLB logos to cover quite a large portion of the front two panels. The “M” is in an art deco style which is a solid white raised embroidered “M” outlined with yellow, blue, and orange which is then outlined with a thin later of black and a similar layer of silver. Coming out of the side of the script and raising above it is the Marlin's new incarnation of the fish that is completed with the same silver and black embroidery, but only inverted.

When the Marlins had announced that they were changing uniforms and displayed a few teaser images I can say that I wasn't impressed, but when the final result was leaked I thought it was quite interesting and looked great on a New Era Cap. The Road Cap differs from the home by the base colour only, and personally I think that this cap is just too orange and will be used as either an alternative or retired in a few years; black will be the dominant colour in South Florida.

Casper Ghosts

When it comes to Minor League Baseball, teams generally have absolutely no fear in the way they name their teams, design their logos, insane mascots, or submit their fans to the wackiest promotions, for that I salute them. For if it were not for Minor League Baseball's inability to feel shame, we would not have such great logos on New Era caps that we currently have, instead we could possibly have just the same blend that we see in Major League Baseball, even though they are always respectable.

One of my favourite Minor League Baseball logos is the city of Casper, which decided to take the play on words and emulate the name of that old cartoon that we've all probably seen at least once in our lifetimes, Casper the Friendly Ghost. Casper, Wyoming didn't think their logo needed to be all that friendly though, and through the process of taking the city's name and putting it through the mind of an eight year old we are submitted to the magic embroidered below.

The Casper Ghosts originated as the Butte Copper Kings in Butte, Montana, but the team ended up in its current location of Casper, Wyoming until 2001 when they became the Single-A Affiliate of the Colorado Rockies, but the team was then known as the Casper Rockies. After 7 solid seasons as the Casper Rockies the creativity set in and come opening day of 2008 the Casper Ghosts hit the field.

The embroidered on the front of the cap for the Casper Ghosts is a fierce skull-like face which represents the ghoul, along with this is a simple baseball stitching on the top which makes it appear as if it's a baseball. The background and outline of the logo is embroidered with a shading technique that creates a haze giving the cap an eerie look to it.

One of the most simple and unique aspects of the cap that won't be appreciated until it dawns upon the viewer is the fact that when viewed in the dark a “G” appears due to the glow-in-the-dark threading used for the certain area. The hidden “G” in the hat is what really takes this cap up a notch, and really adds to the cool factor.

As of the end of the 2011 season, the Casper Ghosts will be moving out of their ballpark of Mike Lansing Field and will relocate to Suplizio Field in Grand Junction, Colorado. This move will effectively kill the team name and the brief history the team had, and the team will revert back to the name Rockies. The team called the Casper Ghosts were short lived, and I'm sure they will be missed.

Is that the Pizza Hut symbol in purple and grey?

Milwaukee Brewers

The Milwaukee Brewers, like the Toronto Blue Jays, went through a 90's with a lack of identify, and saw a pair of logo changes before they finally settled on something that they found fitting for their group. However unlike the Toronto Blue Jays, the Milwaukee Brewers most recent uniform and logo change were very classy and respectable, and didn't require “finding one's self” re-haul a decade later.

The most famous of the Milwaukee Brewers classic logo consisted of a modest blue and yellow colour mixture, the logo itself was a personal mystery to myself up until a few months ago, much like the Montréal Expos, I couldn't read between the lines to learn the true meaning behind the logo, and I know many people have been the same way regarding the two. The logo appears to be just a baseball glove, but it in actuality is an “m” and a “b” making the letters corresponding to the team *m*ilwaukee *b*rewers. From a design standpoint, this is extremely sophisticated, but it's unfortunate that the logo was a mystery to so many, and most likely still is.

In 1994, Major League Baseball adopted a new expanded playoff system which forced the original playoff format to change thus creating two new divisions, which forced the Milwaukee Brewers to switch from the old American League East Division to the newly formed American League Central Division. During this transition, the Brewers made a move to rebrand their team which completely changed their uniform scheme and base team colours, the changes moved from the pale blue and yellow to a gold, green, and navy blue scheme. The caps that came with the new team consisted of the M and B which were stylized to interlock within each other which were abruptly retired in 1996 and replaced with just a taller version of the “M”. The new logo was utilized briefly while still in the American League, but with the expansion of baseball to create the Arizona and Tampa Bay franchises, the Brewers voluntarily moved to the National League Central.

Following the 1999 season, the Milwaukee Brewers had become excited with anticipation of the completion of the construction of Miller Park, and a brand new rebranding of the team had formed. The team kept the current colour scheme to a point, but dropped green completely from their uniforms, hats, and logos.

These are the caps that the team still wears to this day, and they are one of the classiest and most unique caps in all of baseball. The caps are a base Heather Grey with a white stylized “M” which is outlined with gold, and underlined with a gold embroidered stalk of wheat which echos the team name with its symbolism. These caps are worn both home and away by the team and is mimicked on their batting helmets extremely accurately.

In my personal opinion, these are some of the best On-Field Fitteds that are currently being worn in Major League Baseball, they are some of the most intriguing caps that exist and show boldness with modesty all in one with their colour and design choices which click so well. Since the Milwaukee Brewers are one of the hottest and most up and coming teams in baseball, you better pick this up before people hop off of the Phillies Bandwagon and onto the Brewers!

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.