PicApp gets the cap wrog

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.

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!

So long, Rockies, and yo, Phillies!

Things can sure turn around in a hurry in a baseball game, particularly at Coors Field in Denver. As I drove home from work tonight, the Rockies were leading in the top of the 9th with closer Huston Street on the mound. I pulled into the driveway as Jimmy Rollins scratched out a single, then turned the engine and radio off.

By the time I got through with the my arrive-at-home ritual and plopped into the recliner, the Phillies had taken the lead. My jaw dropped as I checked the MLB.com app on my iPhone and saw that the game was still going. A quick flip of the channel and I watched as Brad Lidge recorded the final two outs.

It was amazing how quiet the ballpark got. The Phillies move on to the National League Championship Series with the Los Angeles Dodgers, giving baseball a pair of dynamite bi-coastal matchups. The Yankees and Angels, of course, are in the ALCS. Both series should offer plenty of drama.

In honor of the Phillies, I’ve posted above a photo of myself in my Phillies cap, which I picked up while coaching one of my sons’ Little League teams a few years back. The shot is just old enough so that those 1990s mirrored sunglasses are definitely out of style.

So long, St. Louis Cardinals

That didn’t take long. The Los Angeles Dodgers made short work of the Cardinals in the National League Division Series, closing out the sweep this evening 5-1 in St. Louis. The Cardinals and their fans are thus stuck with this National League Central cap to mark their achievements this season.

My fingers want to type “There’s no shame in going to the playoffs and getting swept in the opening round.” But that’s not what I believe.

Getting swept is a humiliating experience in baseball — and there a many equivalents to it in real life. In the NFL, it stings to lose in the first round of the playoffs but not as badly as it does in Major League Baseball. Three and out — ouch.

It hurts even worse if you had one of the games seemingly within reach, only to bobble it as badly as the Cardinals did in the ninth inning of the second game.

If the Cardinals had squeaked into the playoffs as a wild-card team, it might not hurt so bad. But they cruised to their division title. They and their fans expected much more.

It will be a long, cold winter in St. Louis.

For most of us, it’s ‘Wait Until Next Year’

Playoffs notwithstanding, for most baseball fans today is the first day of the long winter. The season is over, the concession stands are empty, the lockerrooms bare as the players have packed up to go fishing or hunting or whatever they do in the off-season.

For followers of the Chicago Cubs, the Cleveland Indians, the Kansas City Royals, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the San Francisco Giants, another year has passed without post-season play. We small- and mid-market fans will watch glumly as the Cardinals, Dodgers, Phillies, Rockies, Angels, Red Sox, Yankees and Tigers or Twins stretch their seasons.

For those teams, hope remains for October glory, a pennant, a World Series champagne spray. But for most of us — like this crushed Cubs fan — our refrain is “Wait until next year.”

Spring training can’t come soon enough.

Iconic baseball caps: The Los Angeles Dodgers

The Los Angeles Dodgers cap is one of the best in baseball.

With their blade-straight serifs against the deep blue fabric, the white “L” and “A” form one of the most instantly recognizable logos in sport.

Look at this book cover photo of Sandy Koufax at left. (What a great portrait!) Even the most hardened Dodger hater has to admit: the cap is classy.

As a blue-eyed kid in Cleveland reading about Koufax, Don Drysdale and the rest of the Dodgers way out west, I fantasized every now and then about wearing Dodger blue. As an adult who’s spent most of the past two decades close to Candlestick and AT&T parks, I can’t bring myself to wear it now.

Alliances notwithstanding, I have to say the Dodger cap is one of the most aesthetically pleasing caps of all time.

Less than excited about baseball wild card races

We’re in a wild card race. Awesome!!!

Well, hardly. Wild-card races in Major League Baseball have been running for a couple of decades, and I still can’t fully accept them.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ll take a wild card berth. As I write this post, I’m listening to the Giants and the Dodgers. I want the Giants to sweep LA this weekend as I simultaneously pray for the Colorado Rockies to drop each game in their series with the Arizona Diamondbacks.

But the race for a wild card berth doesn’t nearly get me as excited as someone claiming a league or division title. Way back in the late 60s as baseball contemplated following the NFL into multi-division playoffs, I can remember my father telling me that the playoffs were supposed to be the antidote to the all-too-frequent runaway teams atop the old single-division American and National leagues.

In many years, that vision has come through. But — Yankees and Red Sox fans, don’t hate me — I grow weary of the same teams returning to the playoffs year after year after year. The seemingly endless run of playoff appearances by the Atlanta Braves is a good example. They hoarded playoff appearances, although I must admit my judgment carries the bitter tinge from their only Series victory in recent memory, in 1995 over the Cleveland Indians.

Then there was the ‘97 series, in which the NL wild card team – the Florida Marlins – defeated the Tribe in the series. Where’s the justice in that?

I know I’m fighting the last war by whining about the wild card concept, so let this be my last harangue on the subject. I will now turn my attention back to the Giants, and hope against hope that their stellar pitching and anemic hitting manage to sneak them into the playoffs, on the road to a World Series victory against an AL team that won 20 more games in the regular season.

Pedro’s back in the winning column

It was good to see Pedro Martinez back on the mound today. He got the victory as the Phillies defeated the Cubs at Wrigley Field 12-5. Pedro has worn a lot of caps over the years – Montreal Expos, Boston Red Sox, New York Mets and – I’d forgotten this — Los Angeles Dodgers. Any innings he puts in the for the Phils will be a boost to the defending World Champions, and any more victories will be a bonus.

Baseball players should wear caps, not earrings

With the San Francisco Giants losing horribly to the Los Angeles Dodgers tonight, I must vent my frustrations. I haven’t posted in a while, but here goes: baseball players shouldn’t wear jewelry.

Oh, it’s fine if they wear their diamonds off the diamond. But when they go to work between the foul lines, they should take off the bling. Having played a lot of shortstop as a kid and a teenager, I always cringed whenever I’d see Barry Bonds heading for second with that cross dangling from his left ear. He’s gonna get his ear lobe ripped out one of these days, I’d think.

I’ve seen a number of pitchers leaning in to get the sign from the catcher, and it always bugs me to see chains hanging off their necks.

My aversion to jewelry on ball players probably speaks to some deep inner insecurity of mine. Or maybe it goes back to the last couple of years I played as a teenager, during the disco era of the late 70s. I can’t pin it down, but I’m guessing I wasn’t crazy about a couple of teammates who wore those ivory horns or gold medallions strung from chains around their necks. (I actually had a pewter screaming eagle on a chain, but I’d never admit that publicly on my blog.)

There’s probably another reason I dislike bejeweled ballplayers. Prior to the free-agent era, most players didn’t get paid the stratospheric salaries today’s players receive. In the old days, most players didn’t have enough money to toss off a few grand or even a couple hundred dollars on a flashy necklace or earring, let alone wear it on the field. Even if they could afford it, can you imagine Joe DiMaggio or Stan Musial wearing an earring?

Not a chance.

Popular: Baseball caps are all about popular

I spent the day with my son and two of his friends at the Great America theme park in Santa Clara, Calif. While I joined the guys for several rides, I sat a few out and amused myself by taking inventory of the baseball caps people in the crowd were sporting.

As the San Francisco “Don’t Even Think About Moving Here, Athletics” Giants will unequivocally tell you, Santa Clara County is Giants’ territory. So it wasn’t a surprise that I spotted more orange and black caps than any other.  But it was nothing close to even 10 percent of all the caps on display.

The cap that most got my attention was a green Giants cap not unlike the one depicted, only the crown was spangled with glitter and the word “FRISCO” was emblazoned across the back. If San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen weren’t already dead, this cap surely would have killed him.

There were other colorful variations on Major League Baseball caps, such as a red, white and navy Oakland A’s lid on a guy ahead of me in a roller coaster queue. Another guy had a Yankees cap the color of lima beans with white piping (which actually was kind of cool).

I didn’t count, but the team most represented after the Giants and A’s was the Pittsburgh Pirates. The yellow-on-black “P” cap seems to resonate with young men.

After that, it was a mish-mosh of sox (Red and White), Yankees, Phillies, Nationals, even a Tampa Bay Rays cap. One Cubs cap, too, come to think of it.

Refreshingly, I didn’t see a single Dodgers cap all day.