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?

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.

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.

This just in… Caps banned at California credit unions!

Ball cap wearers, we have a public issue. Golden One Credit Union has put a rule in place that customers in its 77 branches in California must remove their hats. I spotted the story this afternoon on the Web site for Channel 13 in Sacramento, which lured me in with a photo of a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball cap.

The new rule, according to a report by the station, was adopted so surveillance cameras can get a clear look at you, as well as any bank robbers who might happen to wander in. Evidently we wearers of ball caps are being lumped with common thugs wearing hoodies. Haberdashery profiling, that’s what this is.