Tip of the Cap

The last thing I do as I leave the house for practice each day is reach on top of the wardrobe next to our door and choose a cap to wear. As a kid I was an avid collector of caps. I would browse through old baseball books and look for unique logos and designs or trade with players from opposing teams. My collection was quite extensive and most of those lids still reside in a container in my fathers basement. My collection is much smaller these days as I don't wear a hat as often for fear of losing my hair and with limited space it gets difficult to find a proper place to put them.

I think what I like about my caps is that they all have a nice little story or memory behind them. I have a Cuban National team cap staring at me at the moment. While scouting the Baseball World Cup last summer in Rotterdam I was approached by a member of the Cuban entourage. He said something in Spanish conveying his interest in trading me his Cuban cap for my newly purchased Dutch National Team cap. I told him I wasn't interested so he did what any normal bargain hunter does, he grabbed my cap off my head and put replaced it with his. I just laughed and considered it a done deal. Now I have a beat up cap that bares the sweat stains of some Cuban.

Resting next to it is my Gopher Hockey hat which is reminiscent of my youth and home grown loyalty to the maroon and gold. Next to that is my old amateur baseball cap from my days playing in Litchfield for the Blues, my surrogate baseball family.

Yesterday as I left the house I reached for my German National Team cap. It is black with an orange D on the front. It was gift I recieved from my former teammates in Cologne Germany following the 2003 season. I had been hounding a few of our players who were on the national team for a cap for two seasons and I finally got one before moving on in my life. As I picked up the cap I looked under the lid and there written in fading blue ink it read "Doc". I didn't realize until that moment but the cap had belonged to our catcher Andre Hille.

Tragically Andre passed away in 2004 during a game in Cologne. I played beside him and served as his coach for two seasons. He was large kid and pretty good looking for a catcher. He spoke with a real soft voice for such a large person and had an infectious smile. He was notorious for forgetting to bring with his catchers equipment to practice. He always claimed it was because he couldn't carry it on his bike, I think he just wanted an excuse to not have to do blocking drills.

So I've got a new memory in an old cap...But like the Cuban I would trade that cap in a second if it meant I could hear Andre laugh one more time.