January 29- Chicago White Sox

Speaking of hats that have been around for a long time… the Chicago White Sox game style made a “comeback” in 1991 and is still the centerpiece of their headwear collection. Now, by comeback I am merely talking about the “SOX” logo moving at a downward left-to-right angle. Believe it or not, that particular logo made its original debut in 1951 as an alternate logo until 1963. Different variations were introduced as sleeve patches as well as logos for caps, but I will get to those later in the year.

One of the things that fascinates me most about this hat is that when I was a kid most people didn’t associate it to baseball. The rap group NWA pretty much made it a preferred wardrobe accessory of choice, seen regularly on the heads of either Dr. Dre or Easy-E. Rap. Hip-hop culture adopted this is as one of their flags and the kids who listened to their music ate it up. Ice Cube was more iconic for sporting a Los Angeles Raiders cap; but then again, what do I know? I’m just a white kid from the East Bay.

Unlike most of the kids in my neighborhood, I knew exactly what this hat was. After all, I’m a baseball fan.

Coming up with numbers to mark this hat was relatively easy, and not really choices that can be debated.

#13- Ozzie Guillen made his debut for the White Sox back in 1985… and was probably one of two other guys that most baseball fans could even remember from that era (Harold Baines and Carlton Fisk being the others). Guillen made an immediate impact with the club and easily won Rookie of the Year over guys like: Teddy Higuera, Oddibe McDowell and Stew Cliburn (Yah, I don’t remember them either). Guillen played shortstop for the Sox until 1997, only winning one Gold Glove in 1990 and making three All-Star games. The last three years of career found him bouncing around until he retired at the end of the 2000 season. Guillen went .264/28/619 with 1764 hits. Not exactly high impact numbers, but… it was what he did after his playing career ending that truly made him worthy. In 2004 Guillen was named manager of the Sox after they and Jerry Manuel parted ways at the end of the 2003 season. The move to put Guillen in charge an unusual choice at first, at least in my mind. Shortstops have never really made the greatest managers, but then again, I’m not a White Sox fan, so I was totally on board with them not succeeding. In his first year the Sox went 83-79 with Guillen at the helm, finishing in second place in the American League Central. In his second year the Sox won the World Series. In his third year… wait... WHAT!? That’s right; in 2005 the Sox won 99 games and won their first World Series title since 1917, a longer drought (by two years) than the Boston Red Sox endured the previous season. But, he wasn’t the fastest to win a World Series title within his first few years as manager. In fact, he’s not even in the top 8.

#35- Frank Thomas will probably go down in the history books as one of the three greatest players to ever wear a White Sox uniform. From 1990-2005 Big Hurt OWNED Chicago… from a baseball perspective that is. And don’t even bring up Sammy Sosa! Thomas is one of only a small handful of guys to win back-to-back MVPs, which he did so in 1993 and 1994. He almost won a third in 2000, but lost to Oakland Athletics first baseman Jason Giambi… barely. With a career batting average of .301, 521 home runs and 1704 RBI, Thomas may be a shoo-in (yes, this is the correct spelling) for the Hall of Fame. Another important milestone is that Thomas had 2468 hits for his career, and probably would have gotten 3000 had it not been for a slew of injuries in 2001, 2004-05 and 2008. All of those accolades aside I personally have to tip my cap to Big Hurt for his monster year in 2006 with the A's. Almost every critic had counted him out, but the A's rolled the dice anyway as they needed a jolt of power added to their lineup. Not only did Thomas add that boost, he led the team in home runs (39) and RBI (114) which in turn helped the A's win the American League West Division title and got him a fourth place finish in the AL MVP vote. Seriously, this guy was, and still is the real deal.

Oh! And don't even get me started on him having a video game named after him! WHAAAAAAT!?!?

January 24- Boston Red Sox

If you’re anything like me, you know how to appreciate a variety of styles on New Era caps. And no, I’m not talking about custom styles. I’ve always been a huge fan of having at least two different styles of game hats, one for the road and one for at home. Sometimes an alternate is a nice change of pace, except when teams go overboard on them. This is pretty funny for me to say considering the fact that I’ll buy it anyway. But that’s not the point, too many hats are way too distracting, and too few hats can be quite redundant. I realize that the New York Yankees and their fans would completely disagree with me on this point, but then again, we are talking about Yankees fans. The Boston Red Sox had been one of those teams for a while too, only rocking one style of cap with the exception of 1974-1978, but only after the “B” logo was introduced in 1933. In 2009 the Red Sox introduced this cap to the field. An alternate style taken from the patches the players had been donning on their sleeves for over 50 years.

I scooped this one up in New York, of all places, at the New Era Flagship store right across the street from the MLB Fan Cave. It was kind of funny considering its popularity and availability, but it’s also not every day you’re going to be in New York and be able to stick it to Yankees fans roaming the street. Yah, I’m a bit of an instigator. Like all the dozens of hats I had bought before, I retreated back to a decent enough chair to get some leverage, opened the cap, set it on my knee, grabbed a silver Sharpie and got to it. Since the hat has only been in use for the last three seasons, it made it easy to know in advance what numbers to drop.

#33- Unless you’ve been under a rock (or in denial) for the last eight years, the Red Sox did in fact win two World Series titles in 2004 and 2007. See, here’s proof…

Why yes, that is me with Hall of Famer Jim Rice and the two trophies. DEAL WITH IT YANKEES FANS! Moving on; there was one player who stuck out the most in both of those series, the captain of the team; no, not Jose Canseco. Jason Varitek, despite being drafted by the Seattle Mariners, played his entire career (1997-2011) for the Sox, and is hands down one of the most notable players in the franchise’s history. He also had a pretty decent beard on his face. Not as sweet as mine, but for a guy who stuck it out in the northeast, it was pretty solid. But most important, he was the field general for both Series.

#47- I really felt that this one has way more of an impact than any other number I could have thrown on. Terry Francona is the mastermind who was able to get a rag tag bunch of misfits to overcome adversity, get their heads straight (even for just a few games) and play giant killer in the 2007 American League Championship Series. Coming back from down 0-3; ridiculously impressive. But with the Curse of the Bambino finally in its grave along with Babe Ruth himself, Francona decided to be a wise guy and make a run at a second World Series in 2007. I mean, the Colorado Rockies didn’t really have much of a chance. So kudos to Francona and company. Now, I realize that this hat wasn’t worn when they won both World Series; however, they were two of the only guys still left on the squad in 2009.

#46- I don’t really throw numbers on the opposite side of my hats, only in a few cases, and this one seemed pretty good. There’s always been a speculation that any rookies, or minor league veterans, donning jerseys in which the sum of the numbers add up to more than 10, there is very little chance that the team will call them up. Obviously 4 + 6 = 10, which in the circumstances of the last two guys to rock this number, both of them got called up to the Show. From 2007-2009 a quick, hard-hitting Mormon kid from Madras, Oregon won a World Series ring with the team in his rookie season, and was a member of the 2005 Oregon State College World Series team that lost to Baylor in the early rounds. Now, he’s wearing #2 and still plays outfield for the Red Sox; Jacoby Ellsbury.

The second player made his first Major League appearance in 2009 wearing the #68.; bad sign. In 2010 he came back again wearing the #39, but switched after Ellsbury made the change to #2. In 2011 he switched again to #16, but was ultimately traded after the season closed to the Oakland Athletics for Ryan Sweeney and Andrew Bailey. In 2012 dude pal kept the #16 and in this time he crushed 32 bombs, won a Gold Glove in right field and was an all-around Billy Badass for the club. Josh Reddick, I applaud you sir!