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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