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.

Baseball cap outlook for 2009: The audacity of hats

Political and fashion lore has it that by not wearing a hat on inauguration day, John F. Kennedy killed the haberdashery industry. From then on, American men stopped wearing hats. While JFK and his fashion-conscious wife certainly influenced American style, I suspect the growing dominance of the automobile in our culture did more to hasten the end of the hat than Jack and Jackie.

As we approach Inauguration Day 2009, there’s renewed hope for us hat fanciers. President-elect Obama has been wearing his Chicago White Sox cap regularly since the Nov. 4 election, and he wore it while campaigning. That’s commitment. It’s not reasonable to expect that he’ll be sworn in wearing a baseball cap, but one can always hope.

These baseball caps freak me out

When I have some time to kill, I’ll often head over to the Major League Baseball or Minor League Baseball Web sites to salivate and dream over the ballcaps and other merchandise they offer. This morning, I decided to broaden my search and entered a Google search for baseball caps. The major cap-making companies popped right up, but I was not ready for the visual assault I received from a couple of them.

I decided to go straight to the New Era site and – POW!!! – I came face to face with an ersatz Milwaukee Brewers cap with an old-style ball-and-mitt logo in Apple Jacks green. I’d show it to you here, but 1.) it’s in a Flash module that I can’t import and 2.) I wouldn’t want to frighten you. I’ll instead show you these tiny thumbnails of other caps available from the Cooperstown Pop Colors collection.

Actually, these caps for the Cleveland Indians, Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Mets look kind of cute here. But imagine them at life size. It’s as if Andy Warhol designed them after a bad acid trip.

I realize these caps are aimed at a younger, hipper (and you know I’m not hip if I use the term) crowd than a baseball traditionalist like me. Same goes for these Red Sox, Yankees and LA Dodgers caps from the Lids’ “Double Up” Major League Baseball collection:

While they’re not for me, I won’t complain if others wear them. They’re still ball caps, and showing your support for your favorite team leaves us all lots of stylistic latitude.

Pretty cool Canadian Olympic cap, eh?

As the whole world watches the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, I couldn’t help but trot out one of my most unusual caps. This is a Canadian Olympic team cap from the 2000 summer games in Sidney.

The photo hardly does justice to the cap, one of the most unusual and stylish in my collection. The crown is shallow, and the bill is so tightly wrapped that its underside is springy to the touch. The Olympic logo is on the right side, and on the left is the brand mark for the Canadian fashion house Roots.

So why am I displaying this Canadian cap on an American flag? This cap was given to me by my good friend Scott White of The Canadian Press. The photo honors our cross-border friendship — and that’s right in keeping with the Olympic spirit.