January 9- Cleveland Indians

When I woke up this morning it was a bit of a struggle to find a decent cap to wear. Shuffling through the large assortment of hats I have at 5 AM didn’t exactly put me in the best of moods. For the first month and a half I’d like to write about and wear a different team; however, every time I grabbed a hat a different style for the 8 hats I’ve all ready written about kept showing up in my hand. It was pouring rain all morning as well, and I wanted to wear something dark so that it got a little water-logged, it wouldn’t be too noticeable. So, I came across the “I” logo Indians cap and said, “What the hell!”

The Indians used this bad boy from 2002-2007 and it served as their alternate cap. The really interesting, personal, thing I recall about this hat is that no one outside of Cleveland really seemed to appreciate it. By that I mean no one really bought it when I was working as a store manager for Just Sports in Woodburn, Oregon from 2005- April of 2007. For months on end they sat on the shelf and collected dust. For those who don’t know, Woodburn is comprised of a large population of Mexicans and Russians. Draw your own conclusions, but basically I sold a lot of Dodgers, Giants, A’s, Yankees and Red Sox caps during my run. I ended up picking mine up last year on EBay for $20. And believe me, it was a tough one to track down.

Now, like I said, the hat was used from 2002-2007. During that time the Indians only finished with a record over .500 twice in 2005 (93-69) and 2007 (96-66) under current Seattle Mariners manager Eric Wedge. The Indians won the American League Central Division in 2007, but were knocked out in a grueling 7 game battle versus the Boston Red Sox who later won their second World Series since 1918. I was particularly not amused by this.

For my markings I dug a bit deep, and kept it on the personal level.

#17- For some odd reason one of my favorite players on the Indians, who played his last year in 2002 is Travis Fryman. Like I said, not really sure. I’ve always dug the name. The other mystery surrounding that is the fact that he only played in Cleveland for 5 years, compared to the 8 he spent in Detroit. It should also be noted that he hit a career low .217 over 118 games. I guess some mysteries were never meant to be solved.

#41- I was obviously in a more clear-headed mood when I decided to drop Victor Martinez on my hat. How could you keep him off? The dude is a switch-hitting powerhouse who had the best year of his career in 2007 going .301/25/114. Arguably one of the best hitting catchers/first baseman/DH in the game today, well, except for that whole ACL tear thing before last season. But prior to that! The dude is a dynamo.