Iconic baseball caps: The Durham Bulls

It’s high time someone started rating baseball caps, and who better to do it than the guy who writes the Ball Caps Blog? I will resist the urge to present a logical progression from the low minors to the big leagues or some other clever organizational device. Instead, I’m going to hop around as inspiration strikes. In this case,  inspiration came from a friend’s Facebook status update about going to a Durham Bulls game.

The Durham ball club is an icon of its own, one of the best known teams in the history of the game. The team is as American as a Mail Pouch tobacco ad plastered on a red barn. The club is steeped in tradition. The Bulls, according to an excellent history on the team Web site, were founded in 1902 as the Durham Tobaccanists. The name was changed to Bulls in 1913. The team got a boost in 1988 when Kevin Costner and Tim Robbins (shown above) appeared in the acclaimed movie “Bull Durham.” Many fans consider it their favorite or even the best baseball movie ever. (I find it the weakest of the Costner baseball trilogy, well behind the relatively obscure “For Love of the Game” and the splendid “Field of Dreams.”)

The Bulls’ cap is as iconic as the team. The bull charges through the center of the bold orange letter “D.” The letter is elegant, classy; the bull powerful, vital. The combination is an excellent symbol for a baseball team.

I give the Bulls cap the highest rating – five – on my caps rating system, which will be represented by clip art caps as soon as I find the right icon.

An inspiring story from the minor leagues

The 2009 baseball season had barely begun on April 9 when Mike Cameron of the Milwaukee Brewers cracked a line drive through the box. The ball struck San Francisco Giants pitcher Joe Martinez in the forehead, causing fractures and a nasty concussion — and jeopardizing the young pitcher’s career.

Martinez is playing baseball again, pitching for the San Jose Giants in the Class A California League. He is scheduled to pitch tonight in Modesto against the Nuts.

In an interview with The Modesto Bee, Martinez says the continual replays of his scary injury don’t bother him. And he doesn’t hold anything against Cameron, who sent him a gift of Milwaukee sausages after the incident. That’s one thoughtful, gracious young man under the Giants cap.

Great online caps source: Ebbets Field Flannels

A great source for baseball stuff is Ebbets Field Flannels, a Seattle-based online retailer that specializes in minor league replica jerseys from days gone by. If you want a Sacramento Solons or Seattle Rainiers jersey from the heyday of the Pacific Coast League, this is the place to go.

My wife sports a fun Nevada (Mo.) Lunatics T-shirt that I got her from Ebbets at the holidays last year, and I covet a Cleveland Barons replica sweater from the Ebbets hockey collection. Most of the jerseys run at $100 or better, so if you’re on a budget as I am, you might want to stick to the T-shirts and caps.

Ebbets has a terrific selection of caps from the minor leagues and the Negro leagues. The cap collection is well worth browsing at this link. The caps come in a marvelous assortment of teams and color schemes, such as the black and orange beauty at right. It’s a 1940 San Francisco Seals cap.

In praise of minor league baseball

If there’s anything more American than baseball, it’s minor league baseball. I grew up knowing only the big-league variety, although one could argue that the Cleveland Indians of the 1960s and 70s were anything but major league.

Over the past decade I’ve become a fan of minor league ball, which has enjoyed a resurgence across the nation. That’s not hard to understand. Games in the minors are more accessible. Tickets are cheap, and concession food is reasonably priced. There’s not a bad seat in most stadiums, and many franchises go all out to entertain you before the game and between innngs.

I went to John Thurman Field in Modesto last night and unexpectedly found myself among the largest crowd ever to attend a minor league ballgame there. The Modesto Nuts, the cheekily named Class A affiliate of the Colorado Rockies, hosted the Stockton Ports. The stadium was swarming with families as scores of kids took part in pre-game karate and cheerleading demonstrations. Even better, as the second half of the California League season nears a close, the Nuts put much of their merchandise on sale outside the team store.

I couldn’t resist buying a Nuts cap. I had intended to buy the black home cap featuring team mascot Al the Almond, but these were fitted caps (only $15!) and my size was puzzlingly missing. So instead I chose the snazzy Wally the Walnut road cap shown above on the roof of the Nuts’ dugout. The cap goes nicely with the black Nuts T-shirt I received as a birthday present last summer from my in-laws.

While the crowd was alternately watching the game and being distracted by the steady stream of nachos, churros and hot dogs being brought up into the stands, the Nuts managed to defeat the Ports 4-3. Fireworks followed the game.

It doesn’t get any more American than that.