Maybe a Blue Cap with a White Bill and Tailfeathers

The debate about changing the Tucson Old Timer's baseball cap has reached continental proportions.

I received a note from John, a friend who lives in Minneapolis: "I saw a TOTs cap on our free table. I suppose that it was placed there by Denny Heath. I don't know if that means he isn't coming back to Tucson or just that his cap doesn't fit anymore."

John has heard about the TOTs; even more than he wants to know. He knows me, and Denny Heath, too. He and Denny live in the same housing complex.

John does not know that the TOTs have been debating whether or not to change from a white cap with a blue bill, to a blue cap with a blue bill, or to a blue cap with a white bill and tail feathers. The TOTs have modernized their game--that is to say, they use both aluminum bats and the Internet--so Denny must have heard: his hat is on the Free Table.

Whether that is an economic judgment or a fashion statement is not known. Or maybe it is just arthritis speaking to Denny.

Like the debate about infield fly rule, or the even more complex issue of whether and how to distinguish a fatal leg injury from a cranial desire not to run to second, and who and how and why to allow a pinch runner, and whether that runner can excuse himself on the basis of his own hip replacement, and whether a left hip or a right hip replacement makes a difference rounding second or third, the TOTs are not acting precipitously concerning cap replacement: cost is factored in, as is tradition, skin cancer, washability, and adjustability to accomodate the fact that head sizes swell in concert with batting averages and an occasional curve ball that actually curves.

I have spent some time in the Midwest. In corn and soybean country they call them "seed corn caps", anyway. They are often free. In fact, I have such a cap, somewhat modified.

Comments

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