Friday, March 8, 2013

March 8- Cincinnati Reds


It’s kind of ridiculous of exhausted I am. Somehow I am continuing to forge ahead, writing this post despite having been awake for the last 40 hours. I assure you I feel like a bucket of yuck at the moment, but it will certainly be interesting to see how well I can string words together when writing tonight’s post.

It still comes at a bit of mystery as to why I purchased this hat on a random day in November of 2011. I was splitting time on my hat orders between Mickey’s Place and Lids when I came to a bit of a crossroad on one specific hat, the 1956 Cincinnati Reds. Now, the really interesting things about both Web sites offering this hat are…

  • Each site featured a hat with a different logo
  • Neither of them was the correct style.
  • Both were interesting, but neither really impressed me.

Yet, for some strange reason I ended up rolling with the one on the Lids site because I thought it was “interesting.” When it arrived in the mail I had roughly the same feeling I do know; the feeling of, “what the hell was I thinking?” Don’t get me wrong, I could have done a lot worse, but it’s still a highly questionable combination of the all red with this particular, crazy-eyed logo.

The logo, while accurate to the era was featured on the sleeves of the jerseys from 1954-1959 and went through slight alterations in 1960 (twice) on through 1967. In 2007 the team brought it, as well as the original Johnny Redlegs, who this logo represents, for their batting practice and spring training collection. In fact, Yahoo!’s Big League Stew writer Dave Brown and I have been jibber-jabbing over which hat is in fact worse looking. This one I’m wearing or the newly released 2013 spring training hat with the black panels.

I think the one part of the story that takes an even more interesting turn is the number selection I opted to roll with: 4256, the number of hits Pete Rose amassed over his 24-year career.

I think at the time I was able to justify it on account of the fact that the Reds had been using this logo during the time when he made his Major League debut on April 8, 1963. Much like the Nolan Ryan career strikeout total on the least significant hat, I decided to roll the dice on one of the most prestigious statistics in MLB history on a hat which most people never knew existed. But, I did. Today is only the third time I’ve ever put it on because, let’s face it; it looks rather goofy on my head. I know I keep blasting this hat, but there are visual traits about it which prove my argument. Most specifically, look at the logo and where it sits on the hat; it’s upright and somewhat misshaped, which makes it appear as if it’s sitting too high in between the front panels. Therefore, for anyone who wears it, the hat is given the appearance that it’s sitting much taller on the person’s head. Second, it’s all red; which in my opinion is a color that has never looked good on me.

One of the most interesting stories about this cap took place about a week before I went to New York for the MLB Fan Cave. The other eight Cave Dwellers and I had all ready been selected, so I was in the process of packing up everything I owned to either move it into storage, or take it to New York with me. Every clothing item I owned which had to do with baseball found their way into my suitcase except for three items. I had developed a hunch one day and decided to email Jeff Heckelman, one of the heads of public relations for MLB, and more specifically one of the guys who was in constant contact with us throughout the application process. I wasn’t really sure how MLB would feel if I ever rolled into the Fan Cave all decked out in Peter Rose Reds gear, so I asked his thoughts on the matter before I made a huge mistake. It only took him about 10 minutes to respond with an ardent “NO!” So, not wanting to be the first on the chopping block (irony) I left my Pete Rose shirt, jersey and of course, this hat behind. It was the only New Era hat not to make the 3000 mile journey with me... and this awesome shirt.

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