June 27- Washington Nationals

Originally I was going to hold off a bit on writing about this cap, until I double-checked my archives. In the whole mix of trying my best not stumble over repeating the same teams’ caps within a month-long time frame, I’ve somehow managed to neglect writing about certain teams for longer than that stretch. I must also take into account how much I’ve fallen behind in my quest to write about a new cap every day this year and how I’m trying to catch up at a somewhat miserable rate. Nonetheless, when looking at the grand scheme of things and which day I’m on in my posts, this particular Washington Nationals cap actually falls within a perfect time frame. If you haven’t noticed by now, even though I’ve fallen almost a month behind, I’ve done my best to keep my posts in REAL TIME, in that I try to give you the story as it happened up until that day as to not confuse anyone with stories that may have taken place after afterward. This piece will dabble a little bit into the “future,” but not too much.

I picked this Nationals cap up on June 24^th during my shopping spree at New Era’s headquarters in Buffalo, New York along with about 20 other caps during my trip for the Fan Appreciation even they held for nine other collects and myself. Of all the hats I picked up, this was one of the newest to this season that I scored which was also kind of a weird move on my part when considering that fact that I could have had any other hard to find hat than this one. By that I mean I could have easily scored this cap off of the Lids Web site at any point in time, but there was just something about that was telling me to add this to my cart. I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that up until the moment I saw it on the wall I had only come across it in photos as the store I work at, Just Sports (@JustSportsPDX) and the Lids at the mall I work don’t have it in stock. Either way, I was going to purchase at one point or another, so I figured in this case, “why not now?”

As I just mentioned, the Nationals introduced it this season as their “alternate two” cap, which I found to be an unusual title considering that the Nationals are down to three caps, including this one, which they wear on a regular basis on the field. One of which, their road cap, I wrote about on April 17^th. The road cap features the exact opposite color scheme as the alternate cap and is also the last Nationals cap I've written about. Clearly I’m slacking. Anyway, the Nationals have only used one other “alternate” cap, excluding holiday caps, during the franchise’s time in our nation’s capital (the red cap with a white “DC” logo), but I’ll touch on that in a later post. The thing about that cp is that it hasn’t been seen or heard from since the end of the 2008 season. Therefore, there really wasn’t any need to give this cap the “alternate 2” title when they could have just stuck with alternate.

As far as when they’ve used the cap, they’ve only worn it during home games which take place on back-to-back Saturday and Sunday games. Having only caught a speckle of Nationals games this season, it was hard for me to recall whether or not any of the games I had watched lived featured any of the players wearing it; however, thanks to Chris Creamer and the fine folks at Sportslogos.net, they’ve been cataloging every team’s record during the 2013 campaign and how the perform under every uniform combination for the season. In essence, with four new game style caps introduced/re-introduced this season, I at least have a bit of a direction as far as where to start in some these stories. At the same time, since two of the four caps brought out are alternate throwback styles, I pretty much have this Nationals cap and the New York Mets alternate as the only ones to really worry about. The other two; a 1983 homage Chicago White Sox which I’ll get to later in the year and the 1970s Pittsburgh Pirates throwback I wrote about on June 12^th.

With only a few months to work with on this cap the one thing that was discovered about this cap is that it riddled with bad luck. From their first official game of wearing it on April 13^th against the Atlanta Braves through today, the Nationals have only fared a record of 2-9. For having only worn this cap at home that’s a rather disturbing trend. Even worse is that the team continues to use it. Now, I’ve always know baseball to be a game of superstitions. Players will do weird things like wear their teammate’s pants (Jose Bautista), some will go without washing their socks (Jason Vargas) and other will eat fried chicken before every game (Wade Boggs); however, once a losing trend starts to form, players usually figure out what the common problem is and rid of it as fast as they can. Somehow this cap has been overlooked in that discussion. Whoops!

When trying to come up with any kind of marks for this cap I scoured the stats to try and find something interesting. At first I was going to roll with #8 for Danny Espinosa as he had reached based at least once, in some form or another, in the first four games of the hat’s use, BUT… it sadly went awry by game five. The same could have been said about #25 Adam LaRoche as I was tallying the game boxscores backwards; however, once I got to the first few games of the season I noticed a consistent slew of borderline golden sombreros. So, I took the easy route and went with the two guys who were able to muster wins in the two of 11 games played prior to today.

#27- Jordan Zimmermann is off to the best start of his career this season, all ready going 11-3 with a 2.28 ERA and gaining a lot of respect amongst critics for a potential National League Cy Young award at the end of the year. Zimmermann’s game under this cap took place on June 9^th for Game 1 of a doubleheader against the Minnesota Twins in which he performed masterfully by going a solid seven innings with eight strikeouts in the Nationals’ 7-0 win. However, Zimmermann’s tale to this point is just as interesting.

Zimmermann was born and raised in Auburndale, Wisconsin, which is about 90 minutes west of Eau Claire where my girlfriend Angie Kinderman (@sconnieangie) grew up. If you can’t tell by both of their last names, Wisconsin has a strong German heritage running through the state. He attended the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and was drafted by the Nationals in the second round of the 2007 Major League Baseball Draft. In 2008, Zimmermann had a combined 10–3 record with a 2.89 ERA at intermediate-A Potomac and AAA Harrisburg, and in July was named to the Eastern League (AA) All-Star team. He finished the season leading the organization in wins, strikeouts, and earned run average, and was the MiLB.com Nationals pitcher of the year.

In 2009, Zimmermann made the Nationals' roster as the fifth starter; however, the Nationals did not need him in the rotation until mid-April, so Zimmermann opened the season with the AAA Syracuse Chiefs. Zimmermann's contract was purchased on April 20, 2009, and he made his major league debut that night, after a two-plus hour rain delay, against the Atlanta Braves. He pitched six innings, allowing two runs on six hits, with three strikeouts and a walk, earning the victory. Zimmermann won his second game in as many starts against the Mets, becoming the first Nationals/Expos pitcher to win his first two starts of his career since Randy Johnson did so in 1988. Coincidentally, Zimmermann was the losing pitcher in Johnson's historic 300th win on June 4, 2009.

Not too long afterward Zimmermann began experiencing elbow pain, and in July landed on the disabled list. In August 2009 Zimmermann was diagnosed with a torn ulnar collateral ligament and underwent Tommy John surgery, expecting to miss 18 months. In 2010 he made quick progress. Over four minor league levels, he started 10 games in limited play, racking up just 39.2 innings, but compiling a solid record: 1.59 ERA, 27 hits allowed, 31 strikeouts, and just six walks. On August 26 he was recalled to make his 2010 debut back in the big leagues, where Zimmermann got a no-decision in an eventual win by the Nationals over the Cardinals. On this same day, the Nationals learned that their other young pitching phenom, Stephen Strasburg, would need Tommy John surgery and would be out for 12–18 months. In Zimmermann's second return start, however, five days later, he pitched six shutout innings, allowing only one hit, no walks, and striking out nine, a personal best. He also became the first National to get through six innings facing only 18 batters.

2012 marked a career year for Zimmerman as he went 12-8 with a 2.94 ERA as a member of, not only a stacked rotation, but as a member of the first Nationals/Expos’ team to win the NL Eastern Division title in the franchise’s history.

Zimmermann also got married during the offseason to his longtime girlfriend, and fellow Wisconsinite Mandy Jellish. The only reason I bring this up is because they got married over New Year’s in Wisconsin the same time I was visiting Angie for the first time since we had met in September for the Miami Marlins game I wrote about on February 23^rd. How do I know this? Collin Balester, the man who is pretty much responsible for convincing me to get out to Florida for my Major League Baseball stadium road trip. The man is a hell of a good luck charm.

#37- On the other side of the tape is Mr. Franchise himself, Steven Strasburg. Strasburg was actually on the losing end of two of the game the Nationals played under this cap on April 13^th and May 11^th; however, he locked up the win in the contest played on May 26^th against the Philadelphia Phillies by the score of 6-1 in his nine strikeout performance. Strasburg is currently 4-6 with a 2.41 ERA as of today as he had a no decision against the Arizona Diamondbacks in their 2-3 loss.

 Strasburg attended West Hills High School in Santee, California. At first, he struggled on the school's baseball team, posting a 1–10 win–loss record in his junior year. A 12-strikeout game against El Capitan High School in his senior year, in which Strasburg allowed one hit, drew attention from scouts. He finished his senior year with a 1.68 ERA and 74 strikeouts in 62 ⅓ innings pitched, with seven complete games. He finished with three varsity letters, set school records in ERA and shutouts, and was named his school's 2006 Scholar-Athlete of the Year. He was also named second-team all-league and his team's MVP. Despite these achievements, he was not selected in that year's Major League Baseball Draft.

Strasburg had hoped to attend Stanford University but was not accepted there. Although recruited by a number of schools across the country, he enrolled at San Diego State University, where both of his parents attended school. He played college baseball for the San Diego State Aztecs, coached by Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Tony Gwynn. When he first arrived, he was an unlikely candidate to pitch collegiate baseball at all; he was so overweight and out of shape that his conditioning coach nicknamed him "Slothburg" and encouraged him to quit baseball. He also had a difficult time adjusting to college life, moving out of his dormitory and in with his mother after five days. He acknowledged, "I wasn't the most mature guy out of high school. ... The dorm was an overload, too much, too soon." Strasburg responded with an intense workout regimen, losing 30 pounds (14 kg) in the process. He also worked to improve his mental toughness. Coaches tested him by placing him in high-pressure situations and telling him he needed to get strikeouts.

San Diego State used Strasburg as a relief pitcher in his freshman year; he began the season pitching in middle relief, before becoming the Aztecs' closer. He held opponents to a .141 batting average against and was named Co-Freshman of the Year for the Mountain West Conference. In the summer of 2007, Strasburg also played for the Torrington Twisters of the collegiate summer baseball New England Collegiate Baseball League (NECBL). He was named to the NECBL First Team as a closer, and was also chosen as the Top Pro Prospect and Top Relief Pitcher in the NECBL.

In 2008, as a sophomore, Strasburg was converted to a full-time starting pitcher. He went 8–3 with a 1.58 ERA and 134 strikeouts in 98⅓ innings. Four of his thirteen starts in 2008 were complete games, two of which were shutouts. On April 11th of that year, he struck out a Mountain West Conference record 23 batters in a game versus the University of Utah. He also gained eight miles per hour on his fastball, regularly working in the upper 90s and touching 100 mph.

Strasburg finished his junior year, the 2009 season, 13–1 with a 1.32 ERA, 59 hits allowed, 16 earned runs, 19 walks, and 195 strikeouts in 109 innings pitched. In his final home start on May 8, 2009, Strasburg threw his first career no-hitter while striking out 17 Air Force Falcons batters. His lone loss came against the Virginia Cavaliers in the NCAA Regionals as Virginia advanced toward the College World Series, but he still struck out 15 in seven innings during the loss.

On June 9, 2009, Strasburg was drafted number one overall in the 2009 Major League Baseball Draft by the Nationals. On August 17, 2009, he signed a record-breaking four-year, $15.1 million contract with the Nationals, just 77 seconds before the deadline, shattering a dollar-amount record previously held by Mark Prior, who signed for $10.5 million in 2001. Strasburg made his professional debut on October 16, 2009, starting for the Phoenix Desert Dogs in the Arizona Fall League at Phoenix Municipal Stadium. He was selected to play in the league's Rising Stars Showcase, but was unable to participate due to a minor neck injury. He also won Pitcher of the Week honors for the week of November 2, 2009 and led the AFL with four wins. Before the 2010 season started, Baseball America named Strasburg as the top pitching prospect, and the second-best overall prospect behind Jason Heyward.

Strasburg was assigned to the Harrisburg Senators of the Class AA Eastern League for the start of the 2010 season. There was so much anticipation and hype surrounding Strasburg that there were about 70 credentialed media members in attendance at his April 11, 2010 debut, and ESPN nationally broadcast portions of the game. He won his Senators debut against the Altoona Curve, allowing four hits and four runs (one earned), while striking out eight batters in five innings. During his first home start on April 16, he yielded two hits and an unearned run with three strikeouts in 2⅓ innings in a loss to the New Britain Rock Cats, one where his innings were limited due to a rain delay. Harrisburg set an attendance record in Strasburg's home debut with 7,895 fans. He completed his Class AA stint with a 1.64 ERA while striking out 27 and walking six in 22 innings.

On May 4, 2010, he was promoted to the AAA Chiefs. In his first game with the Chiefs, he pitched six scoreless innings, striking out six batters while allowing one hit and one walk. That game drew 13,766 fans—the highest attendance in the 135-year history of baseball in Syracuse. In his second start, Strasburg was removed after pitching six no-hit innings. He finished his minor league stint with an overall record of 7–2, an ERA of 1.30, 65 strikeouts and 13 walks in 55⅓ innings, and a WHIP ratio of 0.80.

Strasburg made his major-league debut on June 8, 2010, against the Pittsburgh Pirates. A Sports Illustrated columnist termed it "the most hyped pitching debut the game has ever seen." Strasburg picked up the win in his debut, pitching seven innings, allowing two earned runs and no walks and 14 strikeouts, setting a new team strikeout record. Also, he was the first pitcher in history to strike out at least eleven batters without issuing any walks in his pro debut, while falling just one strikeout short of the all-time record for a pitcher's debut—Karl Spooner (1954) and J.R. Richard (1971) both struck out 15, but each took nine innings to do it, and each walked three. (Bob Feller also struck out 15 in his first start, although it wasn't his big league debut). He struck out every batter in the Pirates' lineup at least once and struck out the last seven batters he faced—also a Nationals record. He threw 34 of his 94 pitches at 98 miles per hour (158 km/h) or faster, including two that reached 100 miles per hour (160 km/h).

In Strasburg's second and third major league starts he struck out another eight and ten batters, respectively, setting a major league record for the most strikeouts in a pitcher's first three starts with 32. The previous record holder had been Richard, who struck out 29 in his first three starts in 1971.

Strasburg was also featured in the cover story of Sports Illustrated following his second start. His #37 jersey was the top-selling jersey in all of baseball for the month of June and became the best-selling Nationals jersey of all time in that span.

Strasburg was placed on the disabled list with an inflamed right shoulder in July 2010. He returned to action on August 10, but in his third game back, on August 21, he was removed with an apparent injury. On August 27, the Nationals announced that Strasburg had a torn ulnar collateral ligament (like Zimmermann), requiring Tommy John surgery, and about 12 to 18 months of rehabilitation. In the 2010 season Strasburg pitched in 12 games, all starts, throwing 68 innings, 92 strikeouts and compiling a 2.91 ERA. He was named a pitcher on the 2010 Topps Major League Rookie All-Star Team. Strasburg made his first rehab start on August 7, 2011 for the Hagerstown Suns. Strasburg made six rehab starts during the 2011 minor league season throwing a total of 20⅓ innings, with 29 strikeouts, compiling a 3.49 ERA and a 1–1 record. He then made 5 starts during the 2011 major league season, his first coming against the Los Angeles Dodgers on September 6. That year he threw for 24 innings, struck out 24, compiled a 1.50 ERA and a 1–1 record.

In April 2012, Strasburg accumulated an NL-best 34 strikeouts and second-best 1.13 ERA. He totaled 6 walks and did not give up a home run. Consequently he was named NL Pitcher of the Month. On May 20, Strasburg went 2-for-2 as a hitter in a game against the Baltimore Orioles and hit his first career home run, a solo shot off of Wei-Yin Chen.

In his June 13 start against the Toronto Blue Jays, Strasburg became the first pitcher of the year to strike out 100 batters.  On July 1, Strasburg was elected to his first All-Star Game, alongside teammates Gio Gonzalez, Ian Desmond, and Bryce Harper. Strasburg ended the season 15–6 with a 3.16 ERA, 1.15 WHIP and 197 strikeouts in 159⅓ innings pitched. Strasburg hit .277 with a home run, 7 RBI, and three walks, earning him a Silver Slugger Award.

As part of Strasburg's rehabilitation from his Tommy John surgery, and as a precaution due to his low innings total in 2011, the Nationals decided to limit the number of innings Strasburg would throw in the 2012 season. Although the number was never official, rumors started that Strasburg's limit would be between 160 and 180 innings. It was also decided that Strasburg's shutdown would be final; he would not pitch in the playoffs. Dr. Lewis Yocum, the surgeon who operated on Strasburg's elbow, agreed in 2011 that Strasburg's 2012 innings total should be limited, although he did not consult with Nationals General Manager Mike Rizzo or Strasburg during the season. Teammate Zimmermann underwent a similar process the year before.

Strasburg's high profile and the success of the Nationals in the 2012 season made the innings limit a topic of national conversation. In addition to baseball writers, a number of other figures made their views on the topic known, including football broadcasters Troy Aikman and Terry Bradshaw, basketball reporter Stephen A. Smith, and even prominent politicians such as Rudy Giuliani and Mitch McConnell. Rizzo defended the decision to shut down Strasburg and criticized the buzz surrounding it: "It's a good conversational piece; it's a good debatable subject. But most of the people that have weighed in on this know probably 10 percent of the information that we know, and that we've made our opinion based upon." The Nationals announced that Strasburg would be scheduled to make his final start on September 12 and would be replaced by John Lannan in the Nationals' starting rotation. However, after a rough outing on September 8, Davey Johnson announced that Strasburg was finished for the 2012 season. Strasburg spent the postseason on the physically unable to perform list as the Nationals lost the 2012 NLDS to the St. Louis Cardinals.

June 24- Buffalo Bisons

This is the second part of the #CrewEra13 trip to the New Era Cap headquarters in Buffalo, New York. For part 1, please click Jacksonville Expos. Otherwise, enjoy!

The next morning came much faster than I had anticipated, and made all the worse by the fact that my brain and body were still on Pacific Standard Time. I was only a little bit hung-over from the five or six Miller High Lifes I crushed merely hours prior as I was smart enough to slug at least a liter of water and some aspirin before I fell asleep. After a quick shower and the putting on of pants I headed down to the lobby to meet up with the rest of the crew. Katherine and Eric were slated to pick us up around 8:30 AM so I nuzzled up into one of the couches and chatted it up with Alex (@Type1SXC), Andrew (@AMitchel_416), Van (@VanLe23), Chris (@ccornolo), Ricky (@RickyRuby) and Leif (@Permabox) while Derick (@LeKid26) and John (@Interstate19) were a few blocks away picking up some coffee and a doughnut or two from the local Tim Horton’s. John, a huge hockey fan, had always wanted to give Tim Horton’s a try, so Derick, a Canadian very familiar with Tim Horton’s, showed him the ropes.

Our two hosts arrived at 8:30 on the nose and we were whisked away in the same SUVs as the day before, headed to breakfast. What none of us knew is that we would be having breakfast at New Era’s headquarters in downtown Buffalo off of Delaware Avenue. All of the other guys made sure to snag photos from the outside before we headed in. I all ready had a few from when I stopped by in 2012 so I took this one photo just for the sake of the utility truck that was inconveniently blocking any hopes of actually having a decent shot.

Before we stepped inside Erin had a manila envelope under her arm and handed us each one of these before we walked inside.

Not only did each of these badges come with our names and hat size on them, they also worked when walking through the special access points and elevators. On top of that, this was awaiting us in the main corridor door between the lobby to the offices and the entrance to the Flagship Store.

It’s the little details like these which go to show how much a company cares about their customers. Amazing.

Breakfast was nice, just a buffet-style gathering in one of the meeting rooms. For me at least when it comes to breakfast, if there’s bacon AND sausage patties available, I’ll be a happy camper for days. As we were shoveling food upon our plates we were greeted by several members of the higher chain of command of New Era including the Chief Marketing Officer and another member of the marketing team of whom I became acquainted with in 2012 while I was working in the MLB Fan Cave. In fact, he was the person who gave me the tour of New Era’s headquarters while I was doing my continent-wide Major League Baseball stadium tour, so it was especially nice to see and shake his hand and thank him again for his hospitality. We started with introductions which included where we were from, how long we had been collecting New Era Caps and what we did with our spare time. By the time they got to me the discussion turned more toward how my experience with the Fan Cave was and how it could have been better. I pretty much just threw up my arms after a solid five minutes. Other than that, everyone was very appreciative of how we had gone from just being collectors to being spokespeople for the company in a sense, always engaging and sharing our collections with other collectors and providing an overall sense of comradely amongst one another, which was essentially why we were chose out of so many people. It was also in this moment that we were told what to expect over the rest of the day: a tour of the New Era factory in Derby, a tour of building which used to be the Federal Reserve Bank, a tour of the newly renovated penthouse and a sit-down session with a designer so we could design our own New Era Cap. At this moment I could feel a little bit of drool dribble out of the side of my lips as idea after idea raced through my head. But first, it was off to Derby.

The drive took about 25 minutes or so we swapped stories with Erin which she started with why most of downtown Buffalo smells like breakfast cereal most of the time. As it turns out there’s a General Mills plant located not too far away and anytime they make cereal the wind will pick up the scent and carry it into the city. I’m a huge cereal connoisseur, mush in the same sense that Jerry Seinfeld is, so walking around town with the scent of Golden Grahams on my shirt would almost be a heavenly experience. The conversation then turned to the band Guns n’ Roses, who had played Buffalo just a few nights before. Erin was quick to comment on how much Axel Rose has changed (for the worse) over the years, something we all agreed upon, but also a show that we all wanted to see deep down. With about 10 miles to go the conversation somehow swayed to how and why “The Shark” was created and became so popular throughout MLB in lieu of the shark fin accessories the San Francisco Giants started producing for Gregor Blanco. What’s funny about this whole thing I that there really isn’t much of a story.

Flashback

In 2011 my roommate, Jared Clark, at the University of Oregon and I were watching whatever random NFL games happened to be on TV as we were playing fantasy football against one another that week. It was around week six and we were tuned into the Green Bay Packers game as I had Jordy Nelson and he had Greg Jennings on his team. Somehow the conversation of Aaron Rodgers’ photobombs came up and we went to the Web site dedicated to it. For those of you who don’t know, ever since Rodgers came into the league he’s made a habit out of photobombing the captains’ photo before every game as long as he was not one of the captains. During week four of that season against the Denver Broncos Rodgers pulled this little number off before the game.

Jared and I thought that was incredibly funny so he and I started doing it to one another anytime we posed for family and friendly photos. Thus, “The Shark” was born. When I got to the Fan Cave I pulled “The Shark” on all eight of the other Cave Dwellers within the first few days of being in New York City as we walked the streets and did some sightseeing. Needless to say, “The Shark” also made appearances in other random folks’ photos as we shuttled through Times and Union Square. It wasn’t until we got back to the apartment that night that the other eight looked at their photos and noticed me in the background. This is when they all asked what I was doing. To which my response was, “That “The Shark.” And you just got bitten bitches!”

Now, contrary to popular belief, I rarely ever have photos taken with me in them; however, anytime I took an important photo in the Fan Cave “The Shark” by one of the other eight was not too far behind.

It had transitioned from a little thing I did with my good friend to becoming one of the unofficial trademarks of the Fan Cave. When the Minnesota Twins stopped by in April Lindsay Guentzel, the Twins’ representative, showed Matt Capps and Brian Duensing the ropes and asked them to do it on the mound if they had a chance during a game. Sure enough, they did.

I was a little pissed off at first, as this was our thing, but over time as more and more players rolled through, learned it and started pulling it on the field, I became a little bit more relaxed about it. It really took seeing Eric Byrnes do it on “MLB Tonight” on MLB Network on a night when all of the executives were in the house that I felt really good about it.

A few days before I got kicked out of the Fane Cave the production crew started filming interviews with all of us about how I started “The Shark” and a full scale (five minute) documentary was in the works; however, all of that came to a halt once I was let go. Despite his best efforts to highjack it, Cardinals’ representative Kyle Thompson tried to keep it going after my departure. Here’s one instance when all of the interns from MLB happened to stop by. What’s upsetting about this photo is that it was taken while I was on the airplane flying back to Oregon, one of many reasons why I hate the way I was treated by the Fan Cave.

From there I did my stadium tour, taking and posting photos of me doing “The Shark” at every stadium and event I went to, making sure to give each one a clever name. I never in my life would have expected so many people to embrace it and share their versions of “The Shark” with me. Even more, I never in my life would have expected players on the Oakland Athletics, as well as other teams throughout the league, to pop it in homage to me.

Actually, in the case of the Athletics, it turns out that Kurt Suzuki and Jonny Gomes had started doing it before they saw me as their home run celebration which they called “Mahi Mahi;” however, as the season progressed and more and more players started interacting with me, it became our version of saying hello, which still continues into this season.

I never would have expected something so dumb to become so popular and synonymous with my name. Crazy.

Back to reality

We pulled into the parking lot of New Era some time around 10:30 and shuffled about, taking photos outside of the facility which used to be original headquarters.

Left to right: Van, Leif, John, Derick, Alex, Andrew, Me, Ricky and Chris

As we got inside I made a B-line over to a few posters of all the on-field and Diamond Era caps for the 2013 season. Basically it was like the foldout section inside of an issue of Playboy; hat porn in my eyes. Before we started the tour we were all given a pair of goggles, for the sake of safety, and we were given instructions as far as what we could and could not take a picture of. I of course jumped the gun in hallway and took a photo of what Derick was wearing. I was soooooooooo jealous of that beautiful Montreal Expos jersey.

Then I opted for the “Reservoir Dogs”-esque slow motion walking shot from the rear as we hit the factory floor.

From there, Showtime!

There’s 22 steps to making a New Era Cap, most of which I don’t remember by name, but I assure you that a lot of heart, time and dedication goes into the process of every cap. We all did our best to find our teams’ caps being made. I struck gold a few times, but nothing with the logo showing. Bummer.

Andrew found a few Toronto Blue Jays logos being sewn on, while Alex was all about admiring his Chicago Blackhawks caps getting assembled.

Ricky had a few hits when we came across this guy clipping all the extra strings and fibers off of a load of Atlanta Braves caps. You may not be able to tell by the photos, but the guy was in the zone, listening to music on headphones and jamming out while he worked. Truly admirable.

One thing that had me cracking up was how all of the employees loved to interact with anyone taking a tour. Here’s Alex after he came across someone doing some stitch work on Team Mexico World Baseball Classic caps.

Everyone was incredibly friendly and open to talking about the experience with New Era, at which no one had a single negative thing to say. This was very reflective upon something very important that I learned during my experience, which I’ll get to in my conclusion.

Our next stop on the tour landed us in the “A-Team” department.

The “A-Team” is made up of small group of ladies who make individual hats for special orders, such as: player specific headwear, celebrities, special events, samples, etc. Of the many special items they had on display, the one that received the most attention was this oversized Military Day cap made especially for Jolly Roger, the Pittsburgh Pirates parrot mascot. I had actually written about this cap on May 5^th. Here’s Andrew trying it on.

One of the perks of this bit of the tour is that it came with our own handmade caps for our teams.

At this point I thought New Era had done more than enough, yet the tour continued. The last stop was in one of the on-site board rooms where we unwound, chatted with a few of the reps and came with an open invitation to take as many “defective” 2013 Texas Rangers Stars and Stripes caps as we wanted. If you can’t tell by looking at it, the defect on this cap is that they were made with white “T” logos with blue trim as opposed to the red “T” with blue trim that the players wore. I was perfectly cool with this. They didn’t have any 7 3/8s, so I snagged a 7 ¼ for myself as well as two 7 1/2s for my friends Taylor (@tayloraksmith) and Mark (@gonzotx88) as they’re both die hard Rangers fans. I probably could have gotten a few more, but I didn’t want to overstep my bounds. In retrospect, it would have been nice to grab a few more to pass out to other Rangers fans I know through Twitter and my trip to Texas. Sorry guys. As the tour wrapped up we all headed back out to the parking lot, got in the cars and headed back to HQ for lunch and what awaited us next.

On the way back “You Can Go Your Own Way” by Fleetwood Mac came up on the radio, at which John and I got into an intense discussion about music. It started with, “Who’s the one band you’d love to see live, living or dead?” I’ve held pretty strong on this answer for about 15 years, but I have to go with The Ramones. They’re one of the few bands whose music has transitioned through the decades and always finds a wide-scale audience. If my memory serves me correct, John said The Cure, but in their early years, which I totally understand. Then The Beatles versus Rolling Stone debate came up, at which we both agreed upon the Rolling Stones… so there really wasn’t much of a debate. It then transitioned into which Stones album was our favorite and which song was our top selection. Naturally I rolled G7 (“Dirty Work” reference), “Street Fightin’ Man” while John went with “Miss You,” an equally awesome selection. This drug on the entire way back to HQ, including other genres, styles and artists; probably one of the better music-related talks I’ve had in a while.

When we got back to HQ we all crammed into the elevator and headed up to the penthouse for lunch and some additional surprises. Upon making the first turn into the penthouse the first thing that you see is the old New Era padded wall from the outfield at Shea Stadium, which always reminds me of Endy Chavez’s spectacular home run robbing catch in the 2006 National League Championship Series.

Then, it was like walking into heaven.

The joint is equipped with a bar, several TVs, lounge chairs and an array of office space all done up like a showroom. Who ever the designers and architects are really went above and beyond it setting this space up. When we stepped into the design/showroom we each had a little section dedicated to us with an assortment of our team’s hats in custom designs and colors affixed to personal hat pedestals, all of which would be getting sent home with us.

I was so blown away by these gifts that I didn’t even notice the $200 New Era gift card that was sitting underneath a small group of hats on a bar stool. At this point I really needed a drink. Not beer, but just something to calm me down because it was all incredibly overwhelming.

For lunch we crushed some square-cut pizza with Buffalo wings, naturally, while we met each of our designers. Derick and I had the same designer, Eric. I guess the word on the street is that all of the designers had done research on all of us and our collections and fought (amicably, not Thunderdome-style) over who would be whose designer. After hearing that I got a little nervous; so, I did what anyone else in position would do… let Derick go first while I went downstairs to go shopping.

If I remember correctly it was John, Leif, Chris, Ricky and I who went down first, while the others toiled away with their designers. My first priority was to scoop up a New Era t-shirt for that night, as I inadvertently forgotten to pack a black t-shirt for the trip. Next, I hat the hat racks, pretty much quaking as there were so many hats to choose from, which I also knew that it would take me very long to go through the $200 gift card. The feeling was pretty much mutual amongst the rest of the group. I had rounded up about four hats (Philadelphia A’s, Atlanta Braves, Midland Rock Hounds and a Toledo Mud Hens) by the time Derick came rolling down. Derick had an idea what he wanted to do for hat well before he came out to Buffalo, so his session didn’t last too long. I on the other hand tried to hurry up so I didn’t keep Eric waiting. Chris was the first person to check out, which meant he was the first person to find out that we were getting employee pricing on everything we bought. I just froze for a second. I just couldn’t believe how things continued to get better and better. Realizing now that I only had about half of my card spent, I went back to the hat racks. The clerk who was helping quickly realized he had been in a similar situation before. When I visited HQ in 2012 I picked up a few hats that I had been looking for for quite a while (Australian World Baseball Classic cap and a Tucson Padres cap). It then dawned on him that he was the one who had been helping me the previous year. I guess I just have one of those faces. All in all, I picked up about 11 hats including National and American League Diamond Era caps, a Kansas City Athletics and quite a few minor league caps before I raced back upstairs to not keep Eric waiting anymore. As I walked out of the store I overheard the clerk ask Eric to hold aside one of the hats I designed for him. Whether I misheard that or not, the pressure was definitely on for me to not design something that sucked.

The first thing that struck me about Eric was that he physically reminded me of one of my really good friends back in Eugene. The second thing I noticed is that the man knows his way around design software. There had been one design idea that had been stewing in my brain for the last two years and I was quite surprised I had yet to come across one on any Web site or in any store. It’s probably one of the most plain ideas I could ever have for a cap, but the logo that’s featured is really the selling point.

Ever since I was a kid I have been infatuated with this particular Pittsburgh Pirates logo, and have been really bummed out in not being able to find just a basic black cap with that logo. Because I like to keep things old school, I made sure to give it a green under brim and made all of the accents (earring, bandana, trim, eyelets and New Era logo in gold. The last thing I wanted to do, but didn’t, was add a comic book-style quote bubble coming out of the logo’s mouth saying, “AAAARRR!!!” It would have been fantastic and quite the conversation piece at galas and other fancy gatherings… but something didn’t feel right. Being the long-time Athletics fan that I am I felt it would have been a bit of a disservice to not do something Athletics-related. So, I popped my thinking cap back on and Eric and I cranked out this bad boy.

Of all the hats I really wanted from 2012 the Athletics Turn Back the Clock Oakland Oaks cap is the one that always comes to mind. In this case I decided to go with the Oaks “O” logo, but make them in the current Athletics colors. Alex pointed out later in the evening that it could have easily doubled for a University of Oregon hat as well. Very clever. I asked Eric if it would be ok to sit on it for a night, which he gladly said yes. I ended up going back downstairs into the shop to pick a few more things up with money out of my own pocket when the hat I ended up going with came to mind. This one.

A few weeks back when I was getting my Eugene Emeralds tattoo I came across a hat on Hat Club.com featuring the Emeralds’ alternate logo, which wasn’t supposed to appear on any caps. The only problem with the cap featured is that all of the colors were wrong. Wanting to fix this mistake, Eric and I tracked down the alternate logo and designed it based on the Emeralds colors from the last 20 years (navy/forest/gold). If you can’t tell, the trunk, eyes and mouth of Sasquatch are all done in gold, as is the batter in the Minor League Baseball logo on the back. I showed all three designs to the others guys and all eight of them unanimously chose the Emeralds cap over the other two. It also helped them come to this decision knowing that we would all get one of each others’ designs. Money!

After we said our goodbyes to the designers we headed to a floor for a meeting with a few of the members of the new release crew. We got a sneak preview of a few of the new fall line collection, none of which I want to spoil the surprise, as well as a few of the Turn Back the Clock caps that are set to be released throughout the 2013 season. Rather than tell about which ones they are, I’m currently on the hunt for all of them so I can share them with y’all. Here's a sneak preview though.

We then headed into another group marketing session about a few of the new ad campaigns and a few other surprises has for the upcoming months. Once again, I don’t want to spoil the surprise. One thing I can tell you is that one of the most epic “war of words” and “smack talk” sessions I’ve ever seen took place before the meeting started. One of the members of the marketing team was born and raised in Chicago just like Alex; however, while Alex loved all Chicago teams (except the White Sox), this guy was an ardent White Sox fan, sporting a cap featuring this logo, but in a custom style. As soon as Alex walked into the room, the gloves were off. It really came out to be more of a philosophical debate than anything, but it was the kind of city-based rivalry that’s worth paying for in a pay per view showdown. To make a long story short, the market executive ended the discussion by asking, “what color socks are you wearing?” I’d say nine times out of ten it would almost be a guarantee that the person being asked that question would be wearing white socks, as he was expecting. Instead, Alex pulled up his pant legs to show off his socks featuring Michael Jordan’s free throw dunk in the 1988 Slam Dunk competition. And no, I don’t mean just the Jordan logo; I mean an entire mural plastered all over his socks. A raucous “OOOOOOOOOHHHHHH!!!!” escaped all of our mouths, and a friendly handshake between the two competitors sealed the deal. It was the stuff that legends are made of.

Our last stop before heading back to the hotel was back down in the lobby for a group photo in front of the banner that New Era had presented to us in the morning. The amount of space we had inside the room was pretty narrow, so I did what I could help bodies fill in by hitting the deck, coming up from the bottom.

Erin and Katherine had one last surprise for us though… a trip to the Buffalo Bisons game that night against the Durham Bulls. Not a bad way to unwind after a day jam-packed with action. We headed back to the hotel for about 30 minutes to decompress, change shower, etc., but I went straight for my Bisons cap and computer so I could mark it up before we walked down to Coca-Cola Field. The only sad part about this is that Van and Andrew had to head home as their flights were set for the evening, as opposed to in the morning on the 25^th like most of us. We gave one another our hugs and goodbyes and made sure to swap social media and contact info before they headed to the airport.

The game was pretty wild for a variety of reasons. First, we got to kick it in New Era’s suite which not only provided a variety of snacks and endless supply of Coca-Cola (no this is not a marketing plug. I really love Coca-Cola), a solid view of the game and some awesome company, it also had a TV inside so we could pop in-and-out of Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals. The game also featured a lot of Major League talent on each team. For the Bisons, Rickey Romero was on the hill while Jose Reyes was playing in his last rehab game before headlining back to Toronto and Anthony Gose. For the Bulls, Shelley Duncan and Ryan Roberts were both in the house, which is funny when considering the fact that they were two contributors in why the Tampa Bay Rays swept the Athletics when I was in Tampa with my girlfriend Angie (@sconnieangie) in April. Mike Fontenot and Jason Bourgeois were also playing for the Bulls. The other crazy surprise is that one of my friends from Toronto was at the game too.

Brad (@LeftOffBase) is a sound engineer for a lot of Canadian artists and bands who happened to make a stop in Portland a few weeks back, as he was working with an artist called Lights. This came during the time that Angie was in town visiting me so we both paid a visit to the Aladdin Theater and caught up with one another as we hadn’t seen each other since we went to a Boston red Sox game at Fenway Park back in August of 2012.

Out of general curiosity I had asked if he was going to be anywhere near Buffalo on June 24^th at which he said he was going to the Bisons game (this one) that night with his girlfriend. Long story short, I felt like a bit of a jerk for breaking away from the New Era group for a few innings, but had to go visit my friend as I rarely ever make it up to Canada, let alone the East Coast. It also gave me an opportunity to take a few action shots closer to the field; one of which almost resulted in my getting tagged in the face with a foul ball. Luckily I went over my head, but unfortunately it got the lady behind me in the back of the head after it deflected off the wall. She was ok afterward.

When I got back to the suite I entered an intense discussion on what song we would use as our walk-up music if we played baseball. This is a question that has plagued me for a long time as there are restrictions to what you can and cannot use. You only have a few seconds to make a point so you have to go with something that will really fire people up in a shirt time frame, which is why I went with “When the Levee Breaks” by Led Zeppelin. Another great one to look up is “Don’t Speak (I Came to Make a Bang)” by Eagles of Death Metal. Anyway, the rest of the game moved along and the Chicago Blackhawks and Boston Bruins were tied 1-1 around the time the game was winding down. We took a few more pictures, one of which came with the Bisons mascot, before we headed back to the hotel to watch the rest of Game 6 as the Bisons fell to the Bulls by the score of 7-1. One random factoid I need to throw in is that on the Major League side of things the Rays and Blue Jays were playing one another, one of those weird moments when the parent clubs and the farm teams play against one another at the same time.

We got back to the hotel just in time for the start of the third period. Alex was going crazy, wearing his finest Blackhawks New Era cap and gear. Well all paid pretty close attention, but chatted amongst one another as we toasted our last nightcap together. As you all know, the Bruins struck first in the third period with about 12 minutes left on the clock and then the Blackhawks tied it back up with less than a minute-and-a-half. I think it was Chris who had said, “looks like we’re going to overtime;” to which I replied, “Well, if there’s one thing I learned from “The Mighty Ducks” trilogy it’s that it only takes one second to score a goal.” Literally, just as I finished that statement Dave Bolland shot and made the eventual game-winning, series-winning goal for the Blackhawks. Alex went ballistic, in the best way possible, of course.

With the game wrapped up so did our time with Erin, Katherine and the great folks at New Era. It was an intense two days of non-stop fun, but all good things must come to an end. But not this post yet. I still have to talk about that hat before I wrap things up. Ha!

Due to the fact that the AAA Bisons switched their Major League affiliate this season from the New York Mets to the Blue Jays, there isn’t a lot to be said about this cap. The Bisons opted for something new for the 2013 season and came up with this gem to wear as their game cap. They do have an alternate style, but I’ll get to that one down the road. The logo of the swinging Bison is a revived logo the team originally used from 1985-1997 while they were an affiliate of the White Sox, Pirates and Cleveland Indians. As far as the marking process is concerned I did it pretty quick, based on which players were doing the best at the time. Therefore…

#20- Josh Thole was an offseason acquisition for the Blue Jays from the original Bisons’ parent affiliate, the Mets, as part of the RA Dickey deal. Thole was a 13^th round draft pick in 2005 and has become a pretty solid base-hitter since he started playing professional. Not a bad skill to have as a catcher. Thole had been called up to Toronto during the time we were there; however, his numbers before leaving: .322/7/31 in 41 games. I don’t think he’ll stick around Toronto for very long, unless of course the Jays decide to get rid of JP Arencibia, but definitely expect big things out of T-Hole (as TSN radio personality Jeff Sammut calls him) in the future.

#53- Signed originally by the Athletics in 1999, Luis Jimenez has become quite the minor league journeyman, having played for the Athletics, Baltimore Orioles, Los Angeles Dodgers, Boston Red Sox, Minnesota Twins, Washington National, Seattle Mariners and now the Blue Jays. Before the game he was batting a solid .331, but went 0-4 on the night. I’m pretty sure it had something to do with me.

By now you’re probably as exhausted reading this as it was for me to write it. Fair enough, so I’ll leave you with this. New Era started as and has continued to be a family-owned, family-run business. I had known this for a number of years, but I didn’t really understand the emotional feeling of that until I was invited to Buffalo this time around. All nine of us were treated as such, as part of the family. We’ve done our best to do go for them by building or collections and sharing it with the world, while they continue to put out a terrific product for us to continue what we love to do. It’s very few and far between when a company rolls out the red carpet to give thanks who have helped support them, and that is what truly made this trip. Thank you again Erin, Katherine, Seth, Eric and the rest of the crew from New Era for helping make this possible and showing that there are still people in the world who care about the opinions and the happiness of others. And last, thank you to Van, Alex, Chris, John, Andrew, Derick, Leif, Ricky and Gary for all the crazy stories and good times we have ahead of us. #CrewEra13

June 4- Milwaukee Brewers

I’ll never forget the first time I saw this hat. I was sitting at the lower social media table at Fan Fest for the Oakland Athletics back on January 27^th. I had just wrapped up a Q&A session with a few members of the marketing team and I was still in the process of trying to clarify my answer to the final question as someone had asked me who I thought the starting rotation was going to be. At first I wanted to reply with, “I don’t know, I’m not Bob Melvin, that’s kind of a stupid question for me to answer,” but I didn’t think that anyone would understand that I was joking, so I didn’t say that. Instead, I answered it as best I could, with the knowledge that a few players were still injured and/or suspended. I made sure to type in each person’s Twitter handle when I answered, which was a seemingly easy task considering the fact that I was using the A’s Twitter account and they only follow 149 people. I typed in Tommy Milone, Jarrod Parker, AJ Griffin, Dan Straily and… I mean to type in Brett Anderson, but I hit Travis Blackley’s account by mistake and send at the same time. Almost immediately I had people saying, “Well what about Anderson?” After realizing my mistake I quickly corrected myself and said that I meant to hit Anderson. But even after doing that the questions kept coming, asking why I left him off the list. Others asked about Bartolo Colon, which I didn’t bother going into on account of his suspension. Rather than continue, we just cut it a few minutes short as the main festivities were about to begin.

What was I supposed to be talking about again? Oh yah! This hat. So after the final question fiasco I just sat at the desk, not really knowing what I was supposed to do or where to go from there. Just as I thought they were going to tell me, “thanks, we’re done with you,” they asked if I wanted to run their Instagram account for the day. On the outside I said, “Sure that would be awesome.” On the inside I of course was going crazy with joy. Anyway, I signed out of Instagram on my phone, handed it over, they put in the username and password, handed it back and I was good to go. Now, the Athletics at the time only followed five people with their account: MLB, MLB Fan Cave, Brett Anderson, Travis Blackley and me. That’s still a badge of honor I’m really proud of, but out of the other four I only follow two of them. When they logged me on the first thing that appeared on my screen was the Milwaukee Brewers fan designed uniform and hat combo (this hat) for their YOUnifom contest they had held. Needless to say, as soon as I saw it I couldn’t take my eyes off of it.

My friend Will MacNeil (@RFWill149) talked about this hat at great length in the month to follow. Actually, the thing that really brought that discussion up in the first place was that I wanted to pay Will back for the Stockton Ports hats he had given me during Fan Fest. Will had told me that he and bunch of other people were going to down for Spring Training and I said I was too (or so I had thought). My last day of finals at the University of Oregon was slated for March 18^th, and I was more than ready to get out of Oregon for a few days to enjoy some baseball in Arizona. As payback for the hats all Will asked in return is that I pick him up one of these hats while I was down in Arizona. As it turned out, the Brewers were only selling them during the games in which they were going to be using them (March 22^nd and March 30^th), or so we both thought. Well, to make a long story short, I was broke and couldn’t get down to Arizona; however, we both noticed that Lids and other hat Web sites were carrying them, so there was no need to rush… or so I thought again.

A few days before I went to Florida to visit my girlfriend Angie Kinderman (@sconnieangie) I ordered a few hats for what I got back. One of the hats that I ordered was this one. Now, Will and I both wear the same size cap (7 3/8), but the problem I ran into was that the Lids Web site only had one left. Needing to pay Will back for his generosity, I bought his for sure; however, trying to track down a second one for myself turned into a greater challenge. I would have to wait almost a month and find one by happenstance at the New Era Flagship store in Miami; which if you end up in Miami, go check it out. It’s awesome, and they employees are amazing. When I went back to Oakland this last time for their series against the Kansas City Royals and Bacon Friday, I made sure to pack it along with me and get it to my right field brother.

From early November through December 13^th, the Brewers held the “Design a YOUniform” contest to allow their fans to come up with something clever and develop a stronger interaction with their clientele. The winner, Ben Peters of Richfield, Minnesota, was flown down to Phoenix to attend the March 22^nd game against the Chicago Cubs in which the Brewers would be wearing the uniforms of his creation at Maryvale Baseball Park. In addition, Peters was given as assortment of hats and shirts with his logos. Personally, I think that’s pretty awesome, but a little bit of money would have been nice to come with that too.

Due to the fact that this cap was only worn for two games I had to pay tribute to the players who did well for the Brewers in both of those exhibition games. Much to my surprise it was a ridiculously easy task to figure out.

#18- Khris Davis was drafted in the seventh round by the Brewers in the 2009 amateur draft out of Cal State Fullerton, one of the top baseball colleges of the last 20 years. From 2009-2012 he worked his way through the Minor Leagues, batting.291 throughout his time. On March 22^nd Davis got the call to start in left field in the Brewers’ 4-1 loss to the Cubs. The game wasn’t a total loss to Davis though. In his third at-bat he teed off on Cory Wade scoring the one and only run for the Brew Crew. Davis’ spring training was so impressive that the Brewers invited him to Milwaukee to stay up with the team and made his Major League debut on April 1st. Unfortunately he only lasted 14 games on account of him batting .188. After their game on May 1^st the Brewers demoted Davis down to AAA Nashville for more work with the Sounds.

#23- Rickie Weeks attended Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. As a sophomore in 2002, he batted .495 with 20 home runs, winning the NCAA Division I batting title. The next year, he batted .479 with 16 home runs, winning a second straight batting title and finishing his career with a .473 batting average, highest in NCAA history. In 2003 he also was named Baseball America College Player of the Year and the Golden Spikes Award, given annually to the top amateur player. The Milwaukee Brewers selected him second overall in the 2003 MLB Draft.

He made his major league debut on September 15, 2003, but did not become a full-time player for the Brewers until June 2005, when he was recalled from Triple-A Nashville, despite playing much of the 2005 season with a thumb injury. In his first full MLB season in 2005, Weeks had a batting average of .239 to go with 13 home runs and 15 stolen bases in 96 games and he finished in sixth place for the National League Rookie of the Year award. These HR/SB number are consistent with his minor league totals (playing in 209 games) of 21 home runs and 24 stolen bases. In 2006, Weeks hit .279 with 8 home runs, 34 RBIs, and 19 stolen bases in 95 games.
Weeks has always had a tremendous amount of power, but his consistency at the plate is lacking, as are his defensive capabilities. He has routinely been one of the “worst” firlders for his position on a yearly basis, averaging 13 errors per season. He’s only made one All-Star Game appearance in 2011.
On March 30^th the Brewers went back to Milwaukee to host their final two exhibition games at Miller Park. On this day they were facing the Chicago White Sox. In his first at-bat Weeks ripped the cover off of a Gavin Floyd fastball for a two-run home run, his only hit of the game. The Brewers ended up wining 5-4, but it was Weeks’ momentum in the early going that helped fuel the Brewers for victory.

June 3- Indianapolis Indians

If there’s one thing I’ve taken comfort in over the years, it’s certainly baseball. Whether it’s at the professional level, collegiate, high school or even the occasional Little League game I can be as happy as a clam in the seats. I’ve learned rather quickly that anything can happen at the most random of times in a baseball game, not necessarily life-altering, but merely something I may never see again within the confines of the diamond. One moment in particular I wrote about on April 22^nd. I was attending the Little League game of a friend of mine’s son Robert in New York City when he had a blooper hit to him just behind the pitchers mound which he caught and then proceeded to tag second and first base to complete and unassisted triple play. That’s right; an eight-year-old pulled that off. Since then, everything has looked rather pedestrian. Kidding of course. But seriously, one should not take the professional game for granted, even just the Major League level, because it’s when you don’t pay attention to the smaller teams and leagues magical things can happened.

A few weeks ago I bought this hat off of the Lids Web site after running across a truly amazing stat within the team’s history… but I’ll get to that later in this piece. This cap was introduced at the start of the 1993 season by the Indianapolis Indians. It's also a little funny that I would be buying this cap considering the fact that Lids is based out of Indianapolis, Indiana. Hmmmm... The Indians are a AAA team in the International League whose Major League affiliate at the time was, you guessed it… the Cincinnati Reds. Wait! Wait a sec… the Reds? Yes, with a name like the Indians one can’t help think of the OTHER Ohio-based MLB franchise. “How did this come to be?” you may be asking your self. Well…

Professional baseball was first played in Indianapolis in 1877. After 15 years of various franchises competing in various leagues (including four years in the National League and one year in the American Association), the current Indianapolis Indians franchise was founded as an original member of the American Association in 1902. That year's team won 95 games, and the first of 21 pennants.

The ballclub played its early seasons at several ballparks, including two on Washington Street, before Norm Perry, who took ownership of the team in 1929, built a new stadium on 16th Street in 1931. He named the park Perry Stadium in honor of his brother James who had been killed in a plane crash. That ballpark, which was renamed Victory Field in 1942 and Bush Stadium in 1967, remained the Tribe's home until July 1996, where they still play today. They are currently on their eighth team of affiliation, the Pittsburgh Pirates. Prior to that they were the Boston Braves (1946-1947), Cleveland Indians (1952-1956), Philadelphia Phillies (1960), Chicago White Sox (1957-1959, 1962-1967), Montreal Expos (1984-1992), Reds (1939-1941, 1961, 1968-1983, 1993-1999), Milwaukee Brewers (2000-2004) and now again the Pirates (1948-1951 and 2005 to the present). In their 111-year history the Indians have won seven class titles, 10 League titles and 23 division titles. Their most recent International League title came in 2000 behind the likes of Ben Sheets and Marco Scutaro.

As I was saying above, this hat was first introduced in 1993, an interesting move which has been known be more of a curse to the team than a blessing. In this case, the changes were rather dramatic. In 1992, the final season the Indians had under the Expos, their uniforms looked like this…

They were basically Expos uniforms and Expos hats except with an “I” as opposed to the multi-colored “M.” And yes, I really want that hat. When 1993 rolled around and the Reds become the parent clubs of the Indians, uniform changes were desperately in order as to look more like the Major League club and not of the team who just left town. Thus, these were born…

The Indians have elected to keep the logo and colors going for the last 20 years, which is pretty smart considering how unique the logo is. Although, this logo from 1969 would make for a pretty awesome cap nowadays, even for just a “turn back the clock night.”

Indianapolis is a rather interesting city. I used to go there once or twice the years with my father to watch Reggie Miller and the Indiana Pacers play back in their heyday. Victory Field sits only a few blocks away from the RCA Dome, where the Indianapolis Colts play, and only a few more blocks away from Bankers Life Fieldhouse (formerly Conseco Fieldhouse) where the Pacers play. My dad and I drove by Victory Field numerous times during our stays, but it was never during baseball season. I hope to get back there again some day soon. I would love to catch a game.

When coming up with a mark for this cap there was only one thing that made sense.

5/20/1998: In my introductory paragraph I talked about magical moments that seldom happen, and if you don’t pay attention, you could miss it. On May 20, 1998, one of those moments occurred, and it’s only happened twice ever during a professional game.

Now, I would love more than anything to stretch this into an amazing story; however, I am unable to. I scoured the internet for hours over the last few days and came up with nothing but cold trails. I even took to the Indianapolis Star’s Web site to go through the archives for the newspaper from May 21, 1998, the one that would have the boxscore from the game as that’s all I really need. Unfortunately, I have to pay $3.95 to be able to look at it. I mean, I’m all for supporting newspapers, but not that much for what I need. So I apologize for being frugal and not being able to give you a more in-depth story, but I’ll give you a story nonetheless.

Based on what I’m seeing the Indians were at home against the Pawtucket Red Sox. It also doesn’t say who the pitcher for the Red Sox was; however, based on the stat sheet on Baseball-Reference.com I can safely assume that it was Jim Farrell, Peter Munro, Brian Barkley or Brian Rose based on their ERAs and home runs allowed. Now, one thing I do know is that all of this takes place during the fifth inning which is how I deduced my conclusion. Indianapolis players hit for a "Homer Cycle". Pete Rose, Jr. opens the inning with a solo home run, Jason Williams connected for a 3–run shot, Glenn Murray slugged a grand slam, and Guillermo Garcia finishes the scoring with a 2–run blast. The Indians won the game 11–4. Like I said, amazing stuff. This was the only time during a professional game that, not only did the team complete the home run cycle in one inning, but they hit for it in general. Only one other time has a home run cycle ever occurred, but that story will have to wait for another night.

One thing that I should point out, which may be a valid reason as the why most people don’t know about this stat, is because of the timing. In 1998 the internet was still in its early going process in the average American home. On top of that, news from a Minor League game was not exactly worthy of national attention, even something like this. In most cases there would be a brief blurb in the local paper; however, that means it would have been printed on May 21, 1998, the day after it occurred. I don’t know how it was how it was where you live, but on that day there was only one headline grabbing national attention, and then took place in Thurston, Oregon, about 10 miles east of Eugene. A boy named Kip Kinkle had been expelled from school the previous day for carrying a gun in his backpack to class. After senselessly murdering his parents he went to Thurston High School and unloaded his carnage up the student body killing two and injuring 20. I was living and going to high school in Bakersfield, California at the time, but it was still chilling to see. Baseball at the time just didn’t matter, and the stat faded into the record books unnoticed by many.

I didn’t move to Oregon until I was 17-years-old in 2000. Between 2005 and 2007 I worked for Just Sports (@JustSportsPDX) as a store manager in Woodburn, the same town where Kinkle is serving a 112-year sentence in a youth detention facility. I moved to Eugene in 2007 and worked for a soccer shop in 2008. Around Memorial Day of that year I had to work the sales tent during a soccer tournament at Thurston High School. For the first few hours of the day I didn’t really think much of it. In fact, I didn’t even remember what had taken place. I overheard someone talking about in passing and a chill ran up my spine. Once you know you’re in a place where something tragic happened the feeling never seems to go away.

UPDATE (5/16/14): Today my lovely girlfriend Angie and I decided to venture out near our apartment to try and find a new bar we can call home. Since we moved here at the beginning of February we had hit quite a few places up on the east side of the I-580 freeway in the Lake Merritt area, but tonight we opted to hit up the west side. As luck would have it, we found our new public house. The bar is called Portal, and they offer a great assortment of beer and food during happy hour, not to mention their lunch and dinner menu is out of this world as well. As we sat at the bar, enjoying the assortment of delectables they had to offer, we watched the Oakland Athletics game as they took on the Cleveland Indians at Progressive Field in Cleveland. We missed the Athletics' first time at the plate but were soon "treated" to Indians' first baseman Nick Swisher's solo home run off of Athletics' pitcher Sonny Gray to draw first blood. Even though it was only one run, Angie and I both felt that this might be how the night goes for the A's. Needless to say, we were wrong. 

In the bottom of the second inning with the bases full of Athletics, outfielder Josh Reddick teed off on Indians' pitcher Zach McAllister for his second career grand slam. Not too long after that Athletics' third baseman Josh Donaldson took McAllister yard for a three-run home run. That closed the book on McAllister. In the bottom of the third inning Athletics' shortstop Jed Lowrie crushed a solo home run off of Indians' relief pitcher Kyle Crockett (no relation to Don Johnson's character on "Miami Vice") and then finally in the seventh inning Reddick hit his second home run of the night off of Indian's relief pitcher Carlos Carrasco, a two-run shot making the Athletics the first team in Major League history to hit for the home run cycle. As happy as I was and how cool historically as this is, I found myself thinking about one unusual coincidence immediately after Reddick went yard for the second time, the school shooting at Thurston High School. 

The reason why this is so unusual, at least in my mind, is because a few years after the shooting (2004) Oakland Athletics' pitcher Dan Straily's family moved to Springfield during Dan's junior year. And, as fate would have it, Straily attended Thurston High School for the remainder of his high school years. No other player before or after Straily time at Thurston has gone on to play in the Majors. It's also a bit strange that even though both games took place 16 years apart, the game date was a difference of four days. It's a very unusual connection amongst the three points in history, but a connection nonetheless.