I’m nearly illiterate when it comes to cricket, but I recognize a great cap when I see one.  I spotted this cap on England cricketer Andrew Strauss while cruising PicApp for anything that struck my fancy. The cap Strauss wears with the crown atop three lions is very cool. From what I can infer from photos on the Web site of the England and Wales Cricket Board, that must be the cap bearing the national team logo.

Mr. Strauss evidently is quite the stud batsman. Below is a shot of him in action, and it looks as if he packs quite a wallop. Note the logo also adorns the helmet he wears. And check out the red ball. Now that’s cool.

Hardly a week goes by when some pro isn’t whining about his wretched lot and demanding to be traded from a team that doesn’t sufficiently suck up to his skills and whims. Last year Jay Cutler could no longer stomach the Denver Broncos and by continual harangues orchestrated his way to the Chicago Bears.

Whining about your misfortune seems almost a requirement in the NBA, where a decade ago we had the famous case of Latrell Sprewell trying to strangle coach P.J. Carlissimo of the Golden State Warriors. Sprewell was dealt to the New York Knicks and kept playing. The Warriors, in fact, seem to have more than their share of the tempermental. Chris Webber famously bullied his way off the team in the mid-90s, and this year Stephen Jackson wanted out and got it.

It’s the same in baseball and football, where top college players have turned up their noses at some NFL franchises even before the draft.

Could any of us get away with this kind of behavior in our workplaces or communities?

“Sorry, boss, I don’t want to work evenings.”

“Either I decide my own assignments or you’re going to have to put me in a better job at a better location.”

“I’m sorry, officer, but my husband is asleep and isn’t available to answer your questions about how at 2:30 in the morning he ran over the fire hydrant and crashed into the neighbors’ tree.”

This is the point at which I’d normally conclude by saying “Give me a break.” But I’m not eligible for such. I don’t make enough money.

This is Black Friday, when millions of bargain-crazed Americans head to the malls to shop for deeply discounted merchandise. The only purchases I’ve made today have been on behalf of my son: at the doctor’s office, the pharmacy and – in a weak moment – an online gaming site.

If you’re a baseball fan and a fan of baseball caps, the Major League Baseball site is running a sale at the MLB.com Shop. I’m not buying anything there today, but this orange-billed San Francisco Giants cap did catch my eye.

I also stumbled onto a link to one of what the site describes as several recordings of classic baseball games on radio that you can buy. The one in the Giants’ area was of a game against the Astros at Enron Field. That park carried that name for so short a time that I’m amazed there was time to find a classic there. I’ll be poking around to find more classic broadcasts available on the site.

I’d love to dredge up some old Cleveland Indians’ broadcasts from the 1960s, when the team was usually terrible. Imagine reliving thrills from 1967 as the Tribe and Washington Senators battled for seventh place in the American League! Seriously, I’d love to hear random games from the past, if only to recall so many fine old players like Ken McMullen and Sonny Siebert or to hear announcers like Jimmy Dudley on WERE in Cleveland or Ray Lane and Ernie Harwell on WJR in Detroit.

Thanksgiving Day in America means turkey, cranberries and football, not necessarily in that order. The Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys have been featured on national TV for as long as I can remember, and both teams will be in action this year.

I’ll be paying more attention to the Cowboys’ game against the Oakland Raiders, who will start Bruce Gradkowski (at right) at quarterback for the second game in a row.

Living just outside the San Francisco Bay area, I’ve become a student of bad and underperforming football teams in recent years. The Raiders and San Francisco 49ers have introduced high-hype first-round draft picks at QB in that time, and the teams have sputtered. I’ve been drawn to their less-heralded backups, Gradkowski and Shaun Hill for the Niners. When they’re playing, their teams move the ball and, at least in Hill’s case, win more often than not. It’ll take a few more games before we see how the Silver & Black perform with Gradkowski leading the way.

Speaking of the Silver & Black, here’s an unadulterated plug for the Silver & Black blog written by a friend and colleague who’s followed the Raiders for years. He actually knows what he’s talking about when it comes to pro football, as he actually goes to the games. I can only give you the armchair perspective.

This is a fits-and-starts blog. Despite my best intentions to post regularly, I sometimes get in a funk and let several days go by without a post. This past stretch of radio silence has been one of the longest, and I intend to correct that in the days ahead.

Where have I been spending my time? Plenty of it has been online, I’m nearly ashamed to admit, playing Farmville on Facebook. I’ve also rediscovered Pandora and have been messing heavily with playlist.com and YouTube.

The day only has so many hours, and when you subtract sleep and work, you have to make the most of what’s available. This blog is more heavily sculpted by baseball season than I realized. And applying the ball caps theme to other subject is a challenge. But I’m up for it.

The show has been around on NBC for a few seasons, but only today as I awoke from a snooze brought on by 49ers, Raiders and Packers losses did I discover Football Night in America. It’s the show that airs before the Sunday night NFL game of the week, and I can’t recall watching it before.

The show, featuring the entertaining Dan Patrick, Peter King from Sports Illustrated and others, is pretty good. But I object to the title, a thinly veiled rip-off of the great, long-running CBC series, Hockey Night in Canada.

NBC, can’t you come up with something a little more original, eh?

WordPress, which I dearly love, recently introduced PicApp images for use on our blogs. I just signed up and in my first search – for “baseball” — was pleased to find photos of celebrities and athletes wearing baseball caps and golf caps.

The first image to catch my eye was this one of singer Katy “I Kissed a Girl” Perry wearing a Los Angeles Dodgers cap.

PicApp’s caption, however, misidentifies it as an LA Lakers cap.

Sheesh.

Friday was an off day for the 2009 World Series, a reminder that the season is nearly over. Baseball is the daily game, and its rhythm regulates our lives most of the year. It’s the oldest and most established of our spectator sports, and I find it the most American of all.

There’s a doctoral thesis waiting to be written about the connection between baseball and our agricultural heritage: The games starting as the blossoms set on the trees in spring, the play flourishing under the summer sun, the shadows lengthening on the diamonds as the cool autumn harvest arrives.

As we’d visit my grandparents in the 1960s, my father often pointed out the places he and his buddies had played baseball when they were kids in the 20s and 30s. “There was a ball field there,” he’d say, pointing to an expanse of grass or a meadow as we drove past. At another plot, “We used to play there.”

Baseball changed as America changed, and urbanization is really what developed the sport into what it is today. While my dad and the other sons of miners in Pennsylvania were playing their games, city kids were playing stickball on the streets of Brooklyn.

In these days of luxury suites and retractable-dome stadiums, it’s important to remember that the game’s roots reach deep into a heritage of farm boys and miners’ kids playing pickup in any scrap of open field they could find.

The highlight of Game 2 for me, the fan sitting in the recliner in front of the 36″ screen in his family room, was the Yankees fans chanting “Who’s your daddy?” to taunt Pedro Martinez.

The self-proclaimed most influential man ever to set foot in Yankee Stadium took the loss.

This is a fun series.

Cliff Lee pitched brilliantly tonight as the Phillies defeated the New York Yankees 6-1 in Game One of the World Series. The only run Lee gave up was unearned, in the ninth inning when Jimmy Rollins made a throwing error that allowed Derek Jeter to score.

The New York media will go into convulsions, blasting the lineup for being unable to hit in clutch situations and the bullpen for allowing the Phillies’ lead to expand. But the Yanks can turn it around quickly with a victory in Game Two. I note that Jeter got the Yankees moving in the ninth inning tonight with a single that fell at the feet of hard-charging Shane Victorino.  The Yankee hitters will produce. Count on it.

Besides, I don’t put too much meaning into a Game One victory. In 1982, the Milwaukee Brewers creamed the St. Louis Cardinals 10-0 in Game One, only to lose the series in seven games.

As Lawrence Peter Berra has been known to say, “It ain’t over till it’s over.”