Wednesday, April 8, 2009 | 5:10 p.m.
NOW
Although I don't know why, I have started collecting baseball caps of teams that no longer exist. They are a little cheaper than those Hummel figurines.
My favorite is a Houston Colt .45s cap. I thought I and Bob Lillis might be the only ones who still owned one, until I saw Billy Bob Thornton wearing one to one of those award shoes featuring Hollywood types. I thought that was pretty cool.
About a month ago, I added a 1946 St. Louis Browns' cap to my collection. It's white with a brown bill with the familiar S-T-L insignia stitched in orange. I've been wearing it since I got it but nobody with the exception of Mark Whittington, my assignment editor at the Sun, has noticed. He has a Browns hat identical to mine.
Anyway, I wore my Browns cap out to Cashman Field for 51s media day where Dave LaRoche, the 51s' pitching coach, and Mike Basso, their new manager, immediately noticed my Vern Stephens' hand-me down (not really, you can order exact replicas online from a company called Dugout Memories) and remaked about it.
This is another neat thing about baseball people. They remember the caps of other baseball people.
THEN
I'll never forget this, because it happened on the day before I got married. My old man was wearing a Cleveland Browns football jacket that said only "BROWNS" on the front and a co-worker of the woman I would marry the next day said "St. Louis Browns, huh?" -- or something to that effect.
When my wife's co-worker walked out of earshot my dad goes to me "Man, that woman is old."
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