Minor League Caps

I've blogged a few times this year about baseball- a consequence of being back in the USA. Today's focus is on the minor leagues and other non-affiliated baseball leagues.

For the unfamiliar, each Major League Baseball (MLB) team has a 'farm system'- affiliated teams at lower-level leagues for player development (and rehabilitation- injured MLB players often play a few games in the minors as they're working their way back). There are four leagues- Single-A, High-A, Double-A, and Triple-A. These are collectively called the Minor Leagues- each MLB team has an affiliate in each league. (See here for a list for all 120 teams.) There are also are MLB 'partner leagues' (independent but associated, like the Pioneer League), as well as Collegiate Leagues (unaffiliated with universities). Regardless of league, they often have wonderful hats and team names.

These non-MLB teams are consistently fun and whimsical. I love it. We often take ourselves too seriously, but we can be absurd in so many ways . . . and these lower-league teams get that. So today I celebrate the amusing, looking at fun hats and team names (earlier this year, I looked at two here). 

The following ten hats, from left to right and top to bottom, are for the:

- Akron RubberDucks (their alternate hat; intuitively featuring a hot dog(?))
- Charlotte Knights (who became the "Charlotte Traffic Cones" for a game, hence the hat)
- Hartford Yard Goats
- Jamestown Jammers (a former minor league team; the current team in Jamestown is called the Tarp Skunks, in a Collegiate League . . .)
- Missoula Paddleheads (moose!)
- Modesto Nuts
- Montgomery Biscuits
- Norfolk Tides (not that whimsical, but they're the Orioles' AAA team, so they get a slot)
- Rocket City Trash Pandas

- Traverse City Pit Spitters

Some other fun team names:

- Kannapolis Cannon Ballers
- Sugar Land Space Cowboys
- Inland Empire 66ers
- Fort Myers Mighty Mussels
- Amarillo Sod Poodles
- Albuquerque Isotopes
- Binghamton Rumble Ponies
- Biloxi Shuckers
- Lehigh Valley IronPigs
- Richmond Flying Squirrels

In the NFL, we recently saw the Washington Redskins become "Football Team" before settling on "Commanders" as their new nickname. How boring. They could learn a thing or two from these baseball leagues.