Baseball and Black Friday

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.

Ironic offer from MLB.com: A cold-weather Cubs cap

I’m fighting off the common cold, swine flu or for all I know bubonic plague tonight, so I’ll make this quick. I got an e-mail from mlb.com pointing out that they’re having a post-season sale. Batting practice caps — those ugly variants on regular caps with goofy curved side panels — are just $9.99.

I followed the link and was tickled to see this Chicago Cubs cold-weather cap with ear flaps — the ultimate accessory for the franchise that for a century has rarely played in the post-season chill wafting off Lake Michigan.

Last October, I noted the flap cap worn by the Phillies’ Jimmy Rollins, who will likely pull it out of his locker for home games against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series starting with Game 3 on Sunday. Oddly, I could find no Phillies model like the Cubs version. For northern franchises like Boston, Cleveland and Milwaukee, I’d think they’d be a natural.

They might come in handy for home openers, too.

UPDATE: The earflap caps are made by New Era, and I was able to find the Phillies model at this link. The New Era site also has them for the Red Sox, Indians and Brewers. I’ll bet there are more, too. Good news!

A new, more modest era for ball caps

The New York Times reports today on the state of the baseball cap industry, and it is certainly not immune to the recession. Sales are off 10 percent over last year at New Era, one of the industry leaders.

“We’re seeing a very jittery landscape,” the company president tells the Times. “People are trying to stick to their most conservative plans. Even Yankee hats are down despite the year they are having.”

The All-American baseball cap, by way of China

This is 2009, and Google pretty much rules the world. For no particular reason, tonight I typed “baseball caps” into the Google Images search bar to see what would come up first.

And here it is, at right: the “6 Panels Baseball Cap with Brass Buckle” as displayed on made-in-china.com.

The irony cannot be escaped. The first image for the All-American baseball cap is a generic black hat on a Web site in China where, for all I know, the people are banned from viewing my blog (poor comrades!).

I did a quick check of several of the caps in my closet, and at least half were made in China. Of the Major League Baseball caps I checked, the Giants, Cubs and Nationals all said “made in China.” My Phillies and Mariners caps are from Macau, and the Marlins lid is from Bangladesh. I couldn’t determine the origin of my Brewers lid, which is from New Era.

I’ve come to two conclusions. The Chinese must love our national pastime, if only for economic reasons. And I need to find a few more caps from the American League.

Iconic baseball caps: The New York Yankees

As I write this post, the New York Yankees are playing the Athletics in Oakland. It’s a fair bet that the Yankees will draw more cheers than the A’s, a common occurrence when the Yanks play on the road. The Yankees have been so dominant for so long that no other team approaches their influence on baseball and on American culture.

Above is an image of two of the greatest Yankees, Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth. They’re sporting classic Yankees caps with the intertwined “N” and “Y,” one of the most iconic images in all of sport. That ligature symbolizes what for decades has been the Yankee ethic of professionalism, superb skill applied diligently without pretension or showboating. It’s DiMaggio smacking a home run, circling the bases in workmanlike fashion, crossing the plate and heading straight to the dugout. It’s Jeter streaking to the sidelines and tumbling into the seats to snare a pop foul, then trotting resolutely back onto the diamond to signal “two outs, let’s get this next batter.”

No pointing to the sky.  No flashy hand-slapping routine between the plate and the dugout. No facial hair.

No matter what team you root for, like it or not, we Americans are known to the rest of the world as Yankees. For its simple, direct, unequivocal statement of Yankees baseball, I award the Yankees cap my highest rating, five.

Caps on sale at MLB.com

In the market for a new cap or two? Major League Baseball has a sale on at its online store: Buy one cap, get the second of equal or lesser value at a 50 percent discount.  The sale runs through Aug. 3. It’s a great way to build your collection. A Seattle Mariners trident model, anyone?

Capping off the Home Run Derby

While not wearing a cap, Prince Fielder won the Home Run Derby tonight in St. Louis on the eve of the All-Star Game. In fact, several sluggers went capless in taking their hacks at Busch Stadium, and maybe that’s just as well. I was not keen on either of the league’s cap and jersey styles. To me, the All-Star Game always has been special, and seeing all the caps and colors from the various teams represented made it so.

One of my Twitter buddies, who posts a San Francisco Giants blog called Nuschlers News, asked during the derby if anyone besides him preferred the old days when the players wore their own team uniforms or at least their team caps while at the All-Star Game. I’m not sure how many replies he received, but all but two preferred players wearing their own apparel.

The derby is a lot of fun, and our family usually makes a point to watch, although it’s a little more difficult out here in the Pacific time zone than it was when we lived in the Eastern.

The kids running loose in the outfield to retrieve flyballs is a nice, if calculated, touch. You can imagine the baseball marketing guys saying, “Let’s remind everybody that this is a game for kids played by men who still are kids at heart.” Yeah, yeah. And let’s all profit richly (by selling All-Star uniforms and caps, say?).

But I shan’t crab anymore. The All-Star Game and the hoopla surrounding it are genuine American creations and traditions. I can’t remember if the players revert to their own uniforms and caps in the game itself, but I certainly hope that’s what happens tomorrow night. I want to see Tim Lincecum in San Francisco orange and black standing on the sidelines for the anthem with Manny Ramirez in his Dodger blue, Derek Jeter in Yankee pinstripes and Ichiro sporting the Mariners’ compass rose. Those “ordinary” uniforms gathered on one diamond underscore just how special a night it is.

The Big Unit on the DL

The San Francisco Giants placed Randy Johnson on the 15-day disabled list after he hurt his left (throwing) shoulder while swinging the bat in a game against the Houston Astros. With the All-Star break on the horizon, the Giants hope the Big Unit will mend quickly and miss no more than a regularly scheduled start or two.

I’m tempted to attribute Johnson’s injury to bad fortune brought on by bad cap karma. The Giants wore the patriotic red caps in the weekend series. By itself, the cap is OK. But paired with the orange and black? Blech. The late Mr. Blackwell would surely disapprove of the color clash.

Cooperstown Ball Cap’s awesome collection

As one might expect of someone who blogs about baseball caps, I spend a little bit of time every now and then scouting the Internet for information on the subject. In a serendipitous search last night, I wound up on ballcap.com, which is the site for the Cooperstown Ball Cap Co. The company is in Cherry Valley, N.Y., not far from Cooperstown and the Baseball Hall of Fame.

The firm makes authentic replicas of old-time ballcaps. I was familiar with their major league and Federal League caps, having ogled them in many a catalog and Web site. But I had no idea of the depth of caps the company recreates. There are caps from Negro Leagues teams, railroad teams, military schools, Native American tribes, even night clubs!

The caps come in a variety of styles, including those 19th Century ones with the band-like crowns and short brims. With only a few photograph exceptions, the Cooperstown site offers only artist renderings of its caps, such as the 1910 model above from the Alameda, Calif., professional team. Having lived on that wonderful San Francisco Bay island town for several years, I’ve put that cap on my wish list along with a few others. (Hint to any relatives with $48 to spend – the 1920 Cleveland Indians cap looks mighty fine.)

A baseball fan could spend a lot of time — and probably money — on the site. I recommend it.

Love those throwback uniforms!

I always get a charge out of the games in which major league ball clubs wear “throwback” uniforms, such as the Pittsburgh Pirates did last night. The Pirates wore the uniforms of the Homestead Grays in defeating the Kansas City Royals, who were wearing Kansas City Monarchs uniforms. Virgil Vasquez (in photo) sports a Grays cap as he delivers a pitch.

There was one strange experiment a few years back in which major league teams wore so-called “uniforms of the future,” and I can recall pictures of the Oakland Athletics in jerseys with quirky sans-serif script that looked like it was out of “Blade Runner.” Better that the teams stick to the throwbacks.