August 10- Philadelphia Phillies

From May 10^th to May 30th I cataloged and wrote about all of the 2012 Major League Baseball Stars and Stripes New Era caps I was able to get my hands on in honor of the men and women who served their country in the United States military and the ties they have to each team I wrote about. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find all 30 teams, but I did promise to continue on as I was able to track down each of the remaining teams. Lucky for me, a few of the teams were issued multiple caps which all corresponded with how many game caps each team used on the field. This would explain why I wrote two posts on the Oakland Athletics on May 21^st and May 30^th. Nonetheless, my original plan was to buy all of them because I loved the concept so much; however, with time being a years removed from when they were worn I’ll be lucky if I’m able to find the remaining teams. As it stands I have nine teams left to go: San Diego Padres, Houston Astros, Kansas City Royals, Tampa Bay Rays, Texas Rangers, Washington Nationals, Minnesota Twins, Los Angeles Angels and the Chicago White Sox. There’s no telling when or if I’ll be able to find them, but the hunt and the stories that follow will be more than worth it.

You can go ahead and file this story under one of the more unusual, yet tragic stories that I have written about. Unusual in the sense that one man’s life path had so many close calls, but tragic because so many lives were lost along the way. Some of you may know this story, but I assure you I will do my best not to screw it up. I have my good friend Jason Cobb (@JasonMCobb) to thank for bringing it to my attention as my mind was really more focused on finding this Philadelphia Phillies cap as opposed to any good stories surrounding it. It was near the end of May when it was brought to my attention, right around the time when I was wrapping up on my Memorial Day posts. Jason had asked when teams I had upcoming as he is an avid reader of my blog. I rattled off the few caps I had and he asked if I had ever heard of Jack “Lucky” Lohrke. The name rung a bell, but I could put my finger on why. He then asked if I had a Phillies cap on order to which I said no. “That’s too bad,” he said. “If you get one you have to do a story on this guy,” he followed. I was intrigued. Jason has always been good about dropping some serious baseball knowledge on me and he would be the only person I’d humbly admit to knowing way more about the game than me. It was kind of a slow day at work so I was able to get a pretty thorough story before I went home and conducted my own investigation.

.190/0/1- Jack Wayne Lohrke was born Feb. 25, 1924, in Los Angeles, the second of three sons of John and Marguerite Lohrke. His father was employed by Fluor Corp, a global engineering and construction firm. Jack attended South Gate High School in LA where he dominated on the school’s baseball team. By the time he graduated (1942) he was playing semi-pro ball. His first minor league team was the Padres, but he played only seven games for them before joining a minor-league team in Twin Falls, Idaho, the Cowboys, a then-affiliate of the New York Yankees in the Pioneer Baseball League. He was named Twin Falls' most valuable player during his first year and met his future wife, Marie, who was the sister of another player. But, like a lot of his colleagues, when the time came to serve their country, Lohrke was not one to hesitate as he enlisted with the National Guard. Lohrke would soon find himself within the company of the 35th Infantry Division.

Lohrke was sent to train in San Luis Obispo, California. One day while riding on a train through California to ship off to war, the train Lohrke was on jumped off the tracks, killing three people around him while many more were severely burned by steaming water that rushed through the train car. Lohrke walked away without a scratch like Bruce Willis in Unbreakable. As a member of the 35th Infantry Division, he fought in the D-Day invasion of Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge, one of the costliest of human lives. On four separate occasions solders on both sides of him were killed in combat, yet he emerged unscathed. In 1945 Lohrke had fulfilled his duties and he was sent back to the States. Lohrke's good fortune continued when he returned to the US. A colonel had bumped him at the last moment from the passenger list of a military transport plane that was scheduled to fly from Camp Kilmer, New Jersey to his home in Los Angeles. Less than an hour after the plane took off it crashed in Ohio, killing everyone on board.

After the war, and following his transition back to civilian life, Lohrke resumed his baseball career. The summer of 1946 found him playing for the Class B Spokane Indians of the Western International League. On June 24, 1946, Lohrke was a passenger on the team bus carrying the team as it traveled toward Bremerton, Washington, to begin a road trip. At the time, Lohrke was the team's third baseman and was batting .345 in 229 at bats. His performance had earned him a promotion to the AAA Pacific Coast League's San Diego Padres but the team was unable to contact him as he was in transit between cities. The Indians’ business manager contacted the police along the route and asked that they relay the message to Lohrke, which they did when the team stopped for dinner. Lohrke, under orders to report immediately to the Padres, removed his gear from the bus, said goodbye to his teammates, and hitched rides back to Spokane. Later that evening, the team bus broke through a guard rail on a mountain pass, plunged down a hill, and crashed. Of the 15 players on it, nine were killed, including player/manager Mel Cole. The six survivors were badly injured.

"When the bus took off . . . I bummed a ride back to Spokane," Lohrke said in a 1990 interview with the Los Angeles Times.. "When I got there I found out both of my roommates had been killed." Although he was accustomed to being lucky, Lohrke said, war had conditioned him to deal with disaster. "Having been in combat, what's going to shock you?" Lohrke said in 1990. "I'm a fatalist. I believe the old song, that whatever will be will be."

From the time he joined the Padres after the accident, Lohrke was called, for obvious reasons, "Lucky"-Lucky Lohrke, the ballplayer who got off the bus in the nick of time, the soldier bumped from the plane that crashed. The name stuck. Who else, after all, had more right to be called Lucky? He's in the Baseball Encyclopedia that way: Lucky Lohrke. An amiable man, he lived with the nickname, but he never liked it, never wanted to be reminded of how close he had come to riding that bus into oblivion. But what could he do about it? –Sports Illustrated 1994

Lohrke played for seven years in the Majors, five of which came with the New York Giants from 1947-1951. From 1952-1953 he played in 37 games over two years with the Phillies, amassing a .190 average zero home runs and only one run batted-in. Lohrke’s time with the Giants was definitely more worthy of note (.244/22/95), but I already wrote about them.

After retiring from baseball in 1958, Lohrke worked in security for the Lockheed Missile and Space Co. in Sunnyvale, California and a few other companies all while living in San Jose. In April of 2009 Lohrke passed away, two days after suffering a stroke at the age of 85. Any bit of the legacy that he left behind is carried out in the few interviews he game to whomever came calling. Most notably, he lived and died by a quote he told Sports Illustrated in 1994 for a story headlined: "O Lucky Man" about the nickname he had bestowed upon him. He was known to have an aversion to storytelling or bragging about anything from his past. "My father didn't want heroes in our family." "When you're the age I was back then, you haven't got a worry in the world. You're playing ball because you want to play-and they're giving you money to do it. And then...well, sometimes those names spring back at me. I'll tell you this: Nobody outside of baseball calls me Lucky Lohrke these days. I may have been lucky, but the name is Jack. Jack Lohrke."

July 30- Oakland Athletics

This is one of the few articles I’m writing in which I’m writing in real time as opposed to the date that I am specifically writing for. I realize how far behind I am in these posts, a little more than 70 days if my count is correct, but this is an important post that lies heavily upon the game that’s about to take place, Game 5 of the American League Division Series.

There comes a time when the people play the game transcend themselves into something beyond what takes place on the field. Some guys do it more publicly, others in private. No matter what the motivator is the important thing to remember is that they are putting in the effort as often as they can. That’s what I see when I look at this cap. When New Era released the 2013 Memorial Day cap I immediately fell in love with them. If you recall my posts back in May I was a huge fan of the 2012 models witch only featured the digital camouflage on the logo, leaving the panel the exact colors of what the teams normally wear on the field. Prior to that all the caps were red, white and blue and featured some variety of the Stars and Stripes despite the fact that the colors may not have corresponded with the teams’ uniforms. Thus, the 2012 did a better job of that; however, like in years passed each hat used was worn on both Memorial Day and the Fourth of July, another thing I really didn’t mind. In 2013 New Era introduced caps specifically for each holiday. The Oakland Athletics Fourth of July cap is one I currently have waiting in the wings to write about as the approach that New Era took was original and fascinating. In the case of this cap, the Memorial Day cap, I love the approach with the all-digital camouflage panels; however, I’m a little confused about the color choice for the “A’s” logo. For the Fourth of July caps New Era went back to the Stars and Stripes motif, but they made the panels for each teams’ cap in the color which corresponded to where each team was playing: grey for the road, white for home and even a Canada Day cap specifically for the Toronto Blue Jays. The reason I bring this point up is because the Athletics played their Memorial Day game at the Coliseum against the San Francisco Giants; however, the “A’s” logo is in yellow which has been the traditional color scheme for the road cap. I know this is something that very few people think about, but for some reason it jumped out at me. I assure you that it isn’t a complaint; in fact, the color scheme actually works better for the cap and perhaps the traditional white “A’s” logo would have been lost within the rest of the cap. My only point of reference I have with this comes with my post from June 30th about the misprinted Texas Rangers caps in which the “T” logo was done in white as opposed to the red as it was intended.

The one constant in all of these caps is that the proceeds benefit Welcome Back Veterans, a program to help returning veterans get treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome as well as to create awareness for others who may not understand it. To date Welcome Back Veterans has raised over $17 million to make a difference in the lives of our courageous veterans and their families. While they may not seem like much, these caps are a great way to show your support as well as a way to give back to the brave men and women who serve their country to provide stability for our freedom and ways of life. As a cap collector I’m proud to add it to my collection. As a baseball fan I’m proud to wear it to show support for the game. As a citizen of the United States of America I’m proud to support those who serve.

I’ll do my best not to butcher this portion of the post as there is a lot of history behind it. Like my Memorial Day posts back in May I did my best o focus on how the military played a part in the history of each team. In a few cases I hit the nail on the head, while in others I focused more on people who served but were still living which really wasn’t the way I should have approached it if I were staying true to the holiday and its meaning. Rather, in most cases I treated it more like a Veteran’s Day piece. I don’t regret those decisions for the sake of their importance and the importance that the men and women I shared stories for still deserve the recognition they may never have gotten as quite a few of my stories dated back to World War I. Since I only own two of the three caps from last season I made sure to do a write-up on each, which I did on May 21^st and May 30^th. When it comes to this cap I’m focusing more on the veterans’ side of things so please don’t call me out for it as I’m well aware of what I am doing. So, without further ado, the story.

#62- If there was one player on this current Athletics team who I feel truly exemplifies what it means to be an Oakland Athletic as well as a great human being, I would have to nominate relief pitcher Sean Doolittle. In the last two years I’ve run into Doolittle four times, in every case he’s popped The Shark before he says hello. I realize that’s a personal thing to me, but the action goes a long way when it comes to character. We all know him as the jokester of the team, follow his Twitter account and you’ll see what I’m talking about. His comedy skills cover a wide range of topics, even his tweets about the Athletics always hit home as he comes off as a real fan of the game, but more important the teams and the fans who support them. His signature right arm extension and curl under the chin before he throws has become a phenomenon with fans called “Doolittling.” It’s much like “Tebowing,” except it’s awesome. I for one call it “What I do Every Night and Day When I Sleep,” but I’m a rare case. Seriously, I actually make that same motion in my sleep. See…

His bushy red beard has become a near iconic representation of the team itself; scrappy, rugged, but 100% Green Collar Baseball. He gets fired up when he comes off the mound after a great inning and cracks jokes amongst his teammates when he’s sitting in the bullpen or chillin’ in the dugout. But the one thing that many tend to forget about is that he’s a fan just like every one of us. Not necessarily a fan of the game, but a fan of the team that suits up and takes the field for. He has been since he was old enough to pick up a ball, much like the rest of us, while he was living in the Bay Area when his family was stationed nearby.

 Sorry for stealing this.

During this time of his life his family had season tickets to the Athletics before moving on to Tabernacle Township/Medford, New Jersey where he went to school at Shawnee High School before attending the University of Virginia.

I bring all of this up for a bevy of reasons, the first of which has to do with the amount of grief I’ve seen him get, direct or not, on social media. People make mistakes. It’s not our job to point them out, complain about them or rub in the person’s face. Yes, we all have the right to do so, but there is a fine line between being a fan and being a jerk. When I see Athletics fans blast him or any other player it upsets me. How can anyone call themselves a fan if that’s what you’re going to do to your own guy? I guess it’s one thing if a particular player is vocal about not wanting to be on the team and that he “plays for himself,” but all I need to do is direct you back to the picture above, mostly the kid on the left who is cheering on the team he loves much in the same way that we do. I don’t think he would do the same.

Like all of my other Memorial Day posts there is some connection that I try to keep with the team and the holiday. In the other posts I listed each teams’ record on Memorial Day; however, I have already done that in a previous post for the Athletics; instead, it just so happens that Doolittle came into the game played on this year’s Memorial Day, May 27^th. Doolittle pitched two shutdown innings, taking over for starter Dan Straily who had gone a solid six, only allowing one run to the Giants. Doolittle pitched perfectly, literally, striking out two and not allowing a single base-runner as he locked up his ninth hold on the season. Grant Balfour came in for the ninth inning and closed the door for his 11^th save on the year.

When I originally bought this cap I had no idea what I was going to do with it, from a writing perspective. I had already touched most of the military/Memorial Day history with the other two posts, but with this I had found myself in a bit of a jam. That is, until I caught a commercial on Fox Sports 1 right before Angie and I left to run errands. I tried to find the video online with no success, so hopefully a few of you have seen it by now. The commercial starts with Doolittle walking out from around a corner saying something to the tune of, “Hi, I’m Sean Doolittle, pitcher for the Oakland Athletics.” To be honest, which I saw this I almost laughed out loud as, for some reason which lies more heavily on his Twitter account and the station it was on, I thought something funny was about to happen. Nope! Instead, Doolittle was doing a public service announcement for the United Service Automobile Association (USAA), the service that provides insurance and benefits to veterans and their families. In the commercial Doolittle talked about his father and stepmother, both of whom are veterans. His father is retired Air Force and teaches ROTC back in his home state of New Jersey while his stepmother is still active duty Air National Guard stationed at McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey. This was the point where I started to get a rough idea of where I wanted to take this piece.

I conducted quite a bit of research and came across an article written and published by the Associated Press from late August, right around the time when I moved to Florida. In it, a writer followed Doolittle to the USS Hornet, a decommissioned US Navy aircraft carrier that was converted into a National Historic Landmark in 1998 where it has serves as a museum open to the public in Alameda, California. Doolittle’s visit came at his own inquiry which started as a photo of a patch from the Doolittle Raiders. 

Forever Into Danger

The patch set Doolittle on a quest of his lineage as the man behind the Raiders was Lieutenant Colonel James “Jimmy” Doolittle of the US Army Air Forces who planned and led the first air raid bombing of the Japanese Home Islands on April 18, 1942, six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The raid was not necessarily intended to win the war, but to boost morale throughout the country in stir up more support for the cause. They succeeded. Because of the surname Sean wanted to better understand the connection to see if there was any relation, especially considering that he comes from a military family. After many twists and turns it was determined that the late General was in fact Sean’s seventh cousin. On his cleats and under the bill of his cap Sean has a written tribute General Doolittle and the Doolittle Raiders, not necessarily because of the family ties, but for everything they did for their country.

Doolittle's contributions to the military have been widespread. This season he was one of the finalists for the Branch Rickey Award which is given annually to an individual in Major League Baseball in recognition of his exceptional community service. Doolittle has meets with veterans at the VA Hospital in Palo Alto and has invited them to games on numerous occasions, speaking with them in the dugout before home games. In August he went to Walter Reed in Washington, D.C. to meet with veterans and wounded warriors when the Athletics visited Baltimore to play the Orioles. He and his teammates started “A’s Relief” this season to honor local heroes from the Bay Area who are Good Samaritans and providing relief. The Reliever-of-the-Month receives four game tickets, food vouchers, onfield recognition and a chance to watch batting practice with the bullpen staff. The heroes also receive a donation to the charity of their choice. He also supports Freedom Alliance, an educational and charitable organization that honors service members and their families.

I know I haven’t talked much about baseball in this post, or really much about his playing career even though he has a truly extraordinary story of how he got the Majors, but that’s the story that everybody seems to know now. Everything I wrote above wasn’t exactly new information, but I felt that it was the right story to tell under the theme of this cap. I guess the thing that I mostly wanted to do with this piece was share a bit more humanity rather than just focus on his job. That is the part that I think a lot of people tend to not separate when talking about Doolittle the person, or any other player for that matter. Sometimes, and coming from me I know how ironic this is, there’s just more to life than baseball.

June 30- Texas Rangers

If there’s anything I’ve learned over the last year when it comes to uniforms, I think one of the top three moments of clarity is when I learned not once, but twice that ESPN uniform “analyst” Paul Lukas (Uni Watch) really has no sense of style and appreciation for change. I realize how much of an odd comment it is for me to say this when considering how much of a purist I’ve become when it comes to just buying hats; however, I do appreciate it when a designer comes up with something new, even if it is a bit unorthodox.

Baseball is a game that some take for granted and heavily undervalue. While some want to complain about how slow it moves or whatever bit of dribble that translates into my head as “clearly you’re not smart enough to appreciate it,” the one thing that very few grasp is that it’s one of the few games that hasn’t undergone any dramatic changes in over 120 years. I’d say adding the designated hitter rule in the American League in 1973 is most notable. Regardless of that, my point about Lukas arose the first time this last autumn after the unveiling of the new Diamond Era batting practice/Spring Training caps and he felt the Atlanta Braves Chief Noc-A-Homa logoed cap was worthy of a F grade, the only one to receive it. Lukas, for one, opposes any use of the old Native American symbols and names as stated in an article he wrote for ESPN back in September of 2012. While I have always respected other peoples’ opinions on this particular matter, I can’t help but find the humor in white people making this argument, while on the other side of the coin there are a fair number of Native American tribes who respect it and are honored by the use, but this is a matter I’ll get into way down the road in another post.  The second strike against Lukas came on March 27^th when he unveiled the 2013 Memorial Day Stars & Stripes caps in a picture tweet which said, “All 30 teams to wear these really ugly camo caps on Memorial Day.” I just can’t side with that.

I for one am a fan of them. Hell, I am a huge fan of the ones from last season. You know; the ones I wrote about back in May which featured the game style-colored caps with the digital camouflage interior logos. The ones I’m still trying to find the last few teams that I need. Like baseball uniforms, the United States military has undergone a similar change by updating their camouflage patterns and colors. In years passed, New Era had stared with variations of red, white and blue pattern hats with actual stars and stripes integrated into the logos which ended up pleasing some and disappointing others as well. Even though I personally didn’t purchase any of those caps, as a fan of the game and a fan of caps, I can still stay that it was a clever series of designs. When it came to last season’s models I felt that it was a way more fitting tribute to the troops on top of the proceeds that were, and are still being donated to Welcome Back Veterans. I will admit I was a little disappointed to see that last year’s models weren’t brought back for a second tour, but I got over it once I saw these. Even more important, I as incredibly impressed with the fact that Majestic Apparel collaborated with New Era and came out with matching camouflage-logo jerseys and shirts for the players to wear and fans to purchase which were met with positive responses from both. My point in all of this is that as a uniform critic, using “ugly” as an adjective is rather juvenile. Even more so, to be so quickly dismissive shows no sign constructive intelligence, kind of like when CBS baseball writer Jon Heyman bashed the Oakland Coliseum so harshly in one tweet. As journalists, they know and could do a lot better.

Now that I’m off of my soapbox, I’ll move onto the hat. I snagged this and two others on June 24^th during my trip to Buffalo, New York for the New Era Fan Appreciation event. In my Buffalo Bisons post from that date I explained how at the end of the New Era factory tour we were allowed to take a few “defective” Texas Rangers Stars & Stripes caps home with us. Not wanting to be greedy, I only took as many as my means told me; one for my friend Taylor (@TaylorAKSmith), one for my friend Mark (@TheTXGonzo) and one for myself. I probably could have snagged more, but I didn’t want to overstep the hospitality. If you couldn’t tell from the photo above, the defect in these caps was that the “T” logo was supposed to be made in red with a blue trim, not white with a blue trim.

To be perfectly honest, I dig the white “T” a lot more than the red, but that’s just me.

Now, unlike last year’s Stars & Stripes caps, I don’t have any intention to purchase one of for every team; however, at some point down the road I will snag the Oakland Athletics for my collection because, you know… Athletics.

When marking up this cap I couldn’t help but post the same date as the Arizona Diamondbacks cap I wrote about on May 14^th due to its significance, but also because it makes a lot of sense (in my mind) on account of the logo. I’ll explain…

5/27/13: If you didn’t click on the link for the Diamondbacks post, I’ll give you the Cliff’s Notes version. Back when the schedule was written up and first posted, the Diamondbacks were so thrilled with the success of a doubleheader which had taken place the previous season that they opted to schedule one for the upcoming season. Being the smart guys that they are, they came up with the best date to hold the games and host the Rangers at the same time, Memorial Day. Since it’s a National holiday, and typically a day when people tend to go out and partake in family events, it proved to be a perfect match for everyone involved… except the Rangers.

If you haven’t noticed with my other posts, I like to find patterns and discover weird stories which all took place underneath these caps. In the case of this one, I thought it would be an amusing fit to mark a date I’ve all ready used on a hat that was made incorrectly for a team that ended up losing both games of the doubleheader they agreed to play in on the road. That’s right; the Rangers dropped both ends of the double dip by the final scores of 5-3 and 5-4. Unfortunately for the Rangers they couldn’t get anything really going offensively with the exception of Adrian Beltre who went 3-9 with three RBI for both games.

April 24- Lakeland Flying Tigers

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve written about a Minor League team, and since I’m currently in the state of Florida I couldn’t think of a better time than to write about this awesome Lakeland Flying Tigers cap. The last time I wore this cap, coincidentally, was the first day that Angie Kinderman (@sconnieangie) and I met in person. I had gone to a Tampa Bay Rays versus Boston Red Sox game the night before with Collin Balester and had worn the cap as a form of neutrality as he was playing for the Detroit Tigers in 2012. I didn’t really have a horse in the race in the game we were watching so I didn’t want to make him feel uncomfortable. Angie and I had been chatting it up, planning on which day and which game we were going to go to so I wore it again on the morning of September 19^th as I drove down to see her in Fort Lauderdale. The drive was absolute Hell as I had a four-and-a-half hour sojourn to see her in blazing heat which forced sweat out of every pore on my body, but it was all worth it in the end.

I picked this cap up during the summer of 2011 simply based on its absolute awesomeness. The Flying Tigers first introduced it in 2007 when they changed their name from the Tigers after the 2006 season. The Tigers class-A squad has been a fixture of Lakeland, Florida since 1963; however, from 1963-2006 they were simply known as the Tigers. In 2007 the team changed its name to the Flying Tigers to pay tribute to the men who were trained at the Lakeland School of Aeronautics and fought for their country during World War II. The name was taken from the 100-plane squad who flew Curtiss P-40 Warhawks in the Pacific during the war. This hat in particular is their alternate logo cap, which features the P-40 as well as the slogan “Tiger Town USA.” I actually visited Lakeland over the summer, but got there well after the season had ended. Joker Marchant Stadium, where the Flying Tigers play, is also the same facility where the Tigers reside during Spring Training. One of the most alluring features of this cap is the use of the military cap logo on the bill of the cap. Only two other teams in professional baseball history have featured graphics on the bill: Rancho Cucamonga Quakes of the California League and the 1969 Seattle Pilots, who used almost the same graphic for their hats. The Flying Tigers do feature the same cap, which they wear for home games, minus the military insignia, but I’ve always found this to be a necessary feature for my collection.

In 2012 the Flying Tigers won their first Florida State League championship since 1992 and have only won in two other years previous to that, 1976 and 1977. It’s kind of an interesting stat when you think about it, or any other Minor League team for that matter. The Florida State League consists of 12 total teams, six in the North Division and six in the South. This divisional setup is virtually identical to another other state-based league, yet for a team who has only been around since 1963 you’d assume that the team might have more than four league titles. Even crazier is when you look at Major League Baseball and use that same logic for a team like the Chicago Cubs (founded in 1876), one of the original 16 teams who have played in MLB since the World Series era started in 1903. Mind blowing!

On my previous Flying Tigers post from February 7 I wrote about the team’s road cap and centered it on Andy Dirks and Charlie Furbush, two guys who came up through the Tigers’ Minor League system starting with Lakeland. This time around I found two other guys who are as equal of praise for their time with the Flying Tigers.

#22- Unless you’re well-versed on Tigers drafts picks, or a regular attendee of the Flying Tigers, you’ve probably never heard of Ryan Strieby. Strieby was a 29^th round draft pick by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 2004 amateur draft out of the Edmonds Community College in Lynnwood Washington. Rather than stick it out in the minors he opted to transfer to the University of Kentucky where he led the Wildcats to the Southeastern Conference championship game in 2006 where he also won SEC Player of the Year. As the season came to a close Strieby was then drafted in the fourth round by the Tigers and made his Lakeland debut in 2008 after spending the previous two years playing intermediate-A ball with the Oneonta Tigers and the West Michigan Whitecaps respectively. Strieby only played one season with the Flying Tigers, a full 112 game season, and really should have moved up to AA Erie to play with the SeaWolves well before season’s end. I say this because he hit .278 in 2008… in addition to a club record 29 home runs and 94 RBI. In most cases of prospects hitting for that much power throughout a season, even in A ball, they occasionally make their way up to the AAA or even Major League roster in September. This was not the case. Strieby did make to Erie the next season and then on to Toledo to play with the Mud Hens in AAA, the year after that, where he would play until halfway through the 2012 season when he was released by the Tigers and then picked up and signed to a Minor League contract by the Arizona Diamondbacks. During this time he averaged .234. As the 2012 season came to a close, so did his baseball career. Strieby is currently a free agent.

#28- Drew Smyly was drafted by the Tigers in the second round of the 2010 amateur draft and has been a key figure in the bullpen for the Tigers since the start of the 2012 season. He was taken out of the University of Arkansas and made his debut for the Flying Tigers in 2011 where he made 14 appearances as a starter and went 7-3 with a 2.58 ERA and 77 strikeouts before being promoted to Erie where he made seven more starts in eight games and finished his run there with a 4-3 record, 1.18 ERA and 53 strikeouts. Throughout the 2012 season he was moved up and down between the Major League club and AAA Toledo as to make room for a few other pitchers in the rotation/bullpen; however, Smyly has been one of the more consistent long relievers for the club, not to mention has been eagerly available for spot starts when needed.

It’s kind of a shame what happened with Strieby, but then again, these are the breaks of the game. One minute you can be on top of the world and the next you can be fighting to keep your job with the team. Smyly will be a household name within the next few years, and has done a pretty solid job making a name for himself with the Tigers. The two were only separated by two years, which in baseball terms is almost equal to 10 years, depending on what positions need to be filled. The Tigers are stacked with bats, and with Strieby playing as a primary first baseman, it’s a bit difficult to find him a spot in the Bigs with guys like Prince Fielder, Miguel Cabrera and Victor Martinez more than capable to fill in for one another.

April 12- San Diego Padres

I’ve developed a bit of a bad habit over the last two weeks to work on my New Era Cap blog posts after the final game had ended. I suppose I could justify my reasoning around the slight chance that something extraordinary might happen at which I could quickly switch up the hat I’m going to write about and center it around whatever event took place. Alas, this was not the case tonight as I had chosen to write about this particular San Diego Padres hat earlier in the day. What can I say? I’m just a huge sucker for Oakland Athletics games.

On March 10 I wrote about the Padres military appreciation day hat the team has been wearing every Sunday since 2011; however, it was not the first hat to be used for such occasion. In fact, Sunday wasn’t even the original day in which the team used it. The actual first day sates back to… well… April 12, today. On a Wednesday back in 2000 the Padres took to the field wearing dark green and khaki jerseys with the team name and numbers stitched on in white complimented with the hat being adorned on the top of my head, as well as Sterling Hitchcock’s below.

Believe it or not it took three hours to track down this photo, and I wasn’t even the one to find it. I got a lot of help from the Twitterverse, but it was Matthew Young (@mjoven1975) who tweeted me the photo. One would think that something so trivial might be easy to find. Well, I have news for you; it isn’t.

The biggest indicators, as far as trying to date this photo are concerned, lie within, not only the player, but the particular fonts and color schemes being used by the Padres at the time, as well as the surroundings. The first thing to note is that Hitchcock played for the Padres from 1997- halfway into the 2001 season and again in 2004, his final year. Nowhere in any of my research did I find anything about the team using camouflage jerseys prior to 2000. The next thing to look at is what’s behind him: a navy blue wall with orange horizontal strips. This would indicate that the team was playing at home at Qualcomm Stadium after looking at other photos. The Padres played at Qualcomm (a.k.a. San Diego Stadium/Jack Murphy Stadium) from 1969-2003; therefore, the 2004 season is scratched. The only other piece of evidence is the typeface in which the “Padres” and the number are written. That particular font was used from 1985-2003, which still leaves it up in the air whether this photo was taken from 2000 or 2001. Based on the intel I received from Matthew, I’m pretty positive all signs point to 2000. Another really interesting fact about this hat is that of all the caps the Padres wore on the field, this one had the longest shelf-life. Every other hat in the 44-year history of the team lasted roughly 5-7 years.

There’s a particular Web site (Sportslogos.net) that I frequent run by a Canadian gentleman names Chris Creamer, who catalogs all the logos, jerseys and hat styles worn by each teams throughout their existence. Whenever I get hung up about a particular year in which a hat is used I call upon it to verify my research. Unfortunately in this case, the Web site let me down. On his site it says that the Padres used this hat from 2006-2010. I suppose in some way that bit is true; they did use it during those years; however, the entire timeframe between 2000 and 2005 is missing. Another unfortunate wrong turn I was led down was by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and their uniform database. Once again, only at times when I need to verify something do I use this site, but once again I was shut down. The Hall of Fame’s database doesn’t even have this hat listed, along with a lot of other hats used by various teams throughout the last 25 years. Even Wikipedia was a complete was today as the team photo they had listed saying “Padres players in their first camouflage uniforms” is incorrect. See?

Upon first glance you might think I’m crazy as a lot of the usual suspects from the 2000 team including then manager Bruce Bochy are present; however, the one giveaway is the presence of David Wells who only played in San Diego in 2006. I think I’ve mentioned this several time before, especially during the American League umpires cap post I did on February 19; a lot of time, work and research go into these little posts I do every single day. Not because I want to prove of my intelligence, because I don’t want to let any of you down. I don’t want any of you to go down the same paths of seemingly wasted hours to find this information. I also do it because I love telling stories. While someone else telling a story of discovery might be boring to others, I try to pep it up a little bit. And honestly, I really want to do great by everyone who reads these because I sincerely do care and value your opinions.

I bought this cap on Ebay back in July of 2011 since I couldn’t find it in any stores... I’ve always been a huge fan of this shade of green and felt it would be an excellent addition to my collection, not to mention something really awesome to wear. Most importantly though, I bought it because of my best friend Ronnie Forrest, a naval vet stationed in San Diego, who went to several Padres games before he was killed shortly after deployment to Iraq during Operation: Iraqi Freedom back in 2003. I still miss him every single day.

There really wasn’t much a patter, from what I recall, when I marked this cap up. Mainly just player on the Padres during this era that I felt didn’t get enough credit for their careers.

#22- There’s an interesting little game that could be played here as I picked two every interesting, ambiguous numbers to roll with. Since this hat was used from 2000-2010 there were four guys who wore #22, but only two of them were for more than a season: Xavier Nady (2000-2005) and David Eckstein (2009-2010). As much as I love Eckstein and his abilities to win at life, I have a greater personal attachment to Nady.

Nady was a second round draft pick by the padres out of the University of California-Berkeley in the 2000 amateur draft. He is also one of the few guys to play in a Major League game in the same year he was drafted. On the second to last day of the season (September 30) Nady made his MLB debut as a pinch hitter for pitcher Todd Erdos against the Los Angeles Dodgers. With one swing of the bat Nady got a base hit, which he later turned into a run in the bottom of the seventh inning. Nady didn’t see another second of action in the Show until 2003; however, at the end of that day and season, his batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage were 1.000.

In 2001 and a bit of 2002 he started out with the Lake Elsinore Storm in the California League, batting .289 with 39 home runs and 137 RBI before moving up to the AAA affiliate, the Portland Beavers. From 2002-2004 I watched Nady and company for the few games he was with the team at PGE Park. Hands down those were some of the best summers I ever had in Portland just being able to relax with a cold beer in my hand, watching the future stars of tomorrow trying to make it to the big leagues. His best season in Portland was in 2004 when he hit .330 with 22 home runs and 70 RBI in 74 games. Amazing! I remember one game specifically when he hit a home run so hard and so far that it tagged the light rail train as it crept passed the stadium. His time in the majors has been a bit checkered, by which I mean he’s become a bit of a journeyman. Eight teams he’s played for in his 13 year career in baseball, the longest of which came with the Padres. During his time in the majors he hit .263/25/91 in 269 games.

#23- This is another one I bit the pickle on as two guys wore this number for pretty long stretched between 2000 and 2010. From 2006-2010 Adrian Gonzalez was a first base masher for the Padres before moving on to the Boston Red Sox and now the Dodgers. Currently Yonder Alonso wear #23, but he never played under this cap. Nope, the biggest name from 1999-2005 was Phil Nevin.

Most people don’t really recall Nevin’s playing career, even though he did have a decent 12-year career with seven different teams. No, most people remember his for being the first overall pick in the 1992 amateur draft by the Houston Astros out of Cal State Fullerton. Now, the best version of this story I’ve heard was by New York Yankees die-hard fan and fellow 2012 MLB Fan Cave Dweller Eddie Mata during our time in New York City. At the time I knew all the info behind this, but it was very entertaining to watch and listen to him tell it with his thick Brooklyn accent.

So, the story goes that there was a scout within the Astros system (Hall of Famer Hal Newhouser) who told then-general manager Bill Wood that the team HAS to take this kid out of Kalamazoo, Michigan with the first overall pick as he would “anchor a winning team.” Fearing that it would cost the Astros a cool $1 million signing bonus to sway this kid away from the University of Michigan, Wood passed and took Nevin instead. With the sixth overall pick in that year’s draft the Yankees took the kid, DEREK JETER, on the advice from scout Dick Groch who told the Yankees brass, after their concerns with Jeter going to college, “the only place Derek Jeter’s going is Cooperstown.” Plus, it only cost them $800,000. The best part of the story is how every year after Jeter and the Yankees won their first World Series in 1996, Newhouser would give them a call asking “how that Jeter kid is working out for the Yankees.” Poor Nevin. He did his best.

The only part of the story that’s a bit questionable is whether or not Newhouser actually made the calls beyond 1996. I only say this because he passed away in 1998.

Nevin’s time with the Padres was the longest of his career. He hit .288 with 156 home runs and 573 RBI. His best year came in 2001 when he made his one, and only All-Star Game appearance and finished 21^st in the National League MVP vote going .306/41/126-every stat that year including runs (97), hits (167) and walks (71) was a career-high.

Nevin’s career ended with the Minnesota Twins at the end of the 2006 season, but he’ll sadly be remembered as the guy who got taken over Derek Jeter. Also, he’ll be known to you as the guy who first wore the Padres camouflage jersey back in 2000. See!

It all came back around again. Scott G (@JustBaseball25) found this 2000 Fleer Showcase card for me, thus ending the search. Excellent work Scott!