Hats off to MLBloggers

I wrote this article tonight on the MLB.com homepage about our new 39THIRTY and 59FIFTY caps (coming in mid-March to the Shop) from New Era, and it will be interesting to see what MLBloggers have to say about the new authentics that players are wearing now around Spring Training and soon in meaningful games. The game cap will be 100 percent polyester so say goodbye to a long history of wool. The BP cap is 68 percent poly and 32 percent wool. Lots of players love them, some players don’t. One thing I have learned about being around MLB for a long time now is that any change means widely different reactions. In this case, the most important thing is that the new caps already have proven their vapor/moisture management on the fields of Spring Training, so paramount is how it helps the athletes. I happen to be a long distance runner in marathon training now, and just 2 months ago I learned the meaning of the word "wicking" for the first time after asking another runner. I think these are pretty amazing changes to the old baseball cap. Anyone have one yet?

It’s cool to see familiar MLBloggers spring back to life lately. Take Scott Reifert, the White Sox VP of Communications who revolutionized professional sports communication by becoming the first team exec to maintain a daily blog for a large populace, thus filtering out the Chicago media. He’s back for his third season of bloging. Take Kenns Korner. (Apostrophe not his.) Or Kyle Farnsworth is my Bodyguard. And then consider all these new and positively unique blogs that are popping up in the Rookies list on the MLBlogs.com homepage. Like Nick the Twins Fan, who just predicted that his team will be the team to beat in the American League. And the funny thing about that is, even with Brad Radke retired and Francisco Liriano out for the year, one can look at how unpredictable this era is and not find Nick’s view outrageous. Whatever you all are predicting as the majority opinion, let me know so I can be sure to cross that off my list of Fall 2007 possibilities. I am already getting a kick out of the preseason baseball publications, because it is the biggest lock on Earth that whatever most of them are predicting will look really dumb several months from now. No offense to any of them, as I used to work for a baseball magazine (Sporting News). It’s just that this decade is having fun making prognosticators look silly. Repeat after us: Just get your team into the postseason, and then there is no favorite whatsoever.

So right now I’m kind of liking Rangers over Rockies and a huge resurgence by Sammy Sosa under new manager Ron Washington. Mostly, I like Texas because of 100 percent polyester caps that are going to keep players cooler than ever in a hot Arlington summer.