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Uni Watch Bookshelf: ‘All Caps: Stories That Justify an Outrageous Hat Collection’

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Some collections are just collections of objects. But often they’re also collections of stories. (There’s a short scene from the 1987 movie Throw Momma From the Train that illustrates this point really well.) That’s the idea behind a new book by Craig Colby, called All Caps: Stories That Justify an Outrageous Hat Collection.

I’m not a cap collector myself, but I’ve collected lots of other things over the years, so I can relate to the story-driven approach Colby’s taking here — it’s a good concept. Great title, too. And there’s an interesting backstory, which Colby explains like so:

A week into the lockdown in March 2020, I decided to wear a different hat every day until we were allowed to be together again. Every day, I posted a picture on Facebook of the hat I’d wear. I didn’t know two things, though. The first was how long we’d be locked down. The second was how many hats I have.

I started adding little stories with the hats. A little community quickly formed around the posts, sharing our lives through our love of hats. One gentleman, Jim, a Viet Nam veteran who lives in Texas, ran out of hats about 25 days in, but he didn’t want to miss out on the fun, so he started sharing whatever he could find — autographs, pictures, CDs, bobbleheads. I have never met Jim in person, but he wanted to keep the connection going.

After 125 days, I ran out of hats. When I made my last post, people who had never even marked a “like” on any of my posts started telling me how much they enjoyed the daily hat and story. A few people told me they were sad it was over. Jim told me it had helped him get through the pandemic. He also said I’m the best friend he’s ever had who he’d never met. Legitimate bonds had been created by sharing hats.

My cousin Julie, who writes mysteries, and my mother, who writes for the local paper, posted that I should write a book. My mother is 87 and I know she really wants to see me publish a book. I need to do this for her. Also, I realized that I was actually writing about all the connections in my life. Meeting my best friend, Dave, is in there. So is his death 15 years ago. So is the trip to NYC to take his sons to Yankee Stadium, something Dave told me he wanted to do in one of the last emails I received from him. Meeting my wife is in there. So is the relationship with my brothers and parents. There are fun, sad, uplifting, universal stories about life, death, love, loss and triumph. I was wearing a part of my life every day. People connected to that. They saw themselves in these stories.

Interesting, right? Colby’s daily cap project during the pandemic reminded me of my own Pandemic Porch Cocktails photo project (itself a collection of sorts) — many people told me how they sort of bonded with that project in 2020 and ’21, just as people apparently bonded with Colby’s cap ritual.

If you’re a serious hat geek looking for the ins and outs of deep-cut cap minutiae, that’s not what this book is about. It’s more like an autobiography told in 125 short, discreet story-chapters, each of which mentions a cap. Sometimes the cap figures prominently in the story; often it’s more tangential. Either way, it’s really more of a book about Colby than a book about caps.

I don’t mean that as a criticism — Colby is good company throughout this book — I’m just explaining that serious hat fanatics might not find what they’re looking for here. It’s a nice slice-of-life book, though, and books like that don’t often come with a big cap collection as a bonus. You can learn more about the book here, and it’s available here.

As a bonus: Colby has just published a blog post in which he predicts the 2022 MLB playoff outcomes based on the teams’ caps.


 
  
 

Too Good for the Ticker

Yesterday’s Ticker included an item about a bunch of Tigers players going to get coffee in Seattle in full uniform. As it turned out, a Mariners fan named Mark Trono was there with his son, wearing a Seattle Steelheads throwback jersey, so the Tigers obligingly posed for a few pics with the kid. Trono’s friend Carlos Montalvan is a Uni Watch reader and shared this photo with me. So cool!


 

Bulletin Reminder

Two important Bulletin-related things happened on Wednesday. First, I published my annual NHL Season Preview, and it’s a doozy. It’s available here to my Premium Subscribers.

Second, I broke the news that Facebook has decided to shut down Bulletin at the end of the year. The most immediate impact of this is that right now is suddenly a very good time to subscribe to my Bulletin content, because you’ll end up getting a full refund. No risk! Full details here.


 

LAST CALL for the Soccer Jerseys

If you want to get in on the Uni Watch soccer jerseys — which you can personalize with your choice of number and NOB, for delivery around the start of the World Cup — you must get your order in today. Full details here.

• • • • •

I’ll post the Ticker later this morning, and that should do it for this week. Enjoy the MLB playoffs, enjoy Phil’s weekend content, stay well, and I’ll see you back here on Monday. Peace. — Paul


Comments (19)

    So according to Mr. Colby the Phillies lose points because their throwback cap is too good. Yeah that makes sense to me. However, St. Louis and Philadelphia do have 2 of the best sets of caps in MLB.

    Tigers players getting coffee in full uniform is awesome.
    Also the beautiful Steelheads gear is a reminder that the Mariners could use a rebrand which includes a more traditional font for their uniforms.

    Hip hop blasts two days in a row. White Lines yesterday, and ALL CAPS today. Man, I miss MF DOOM.

    And… some folks yesterday were giving the nod to Deion for being the most iconic vertical-bars-face mask rocker. Must beg to differ.
    The honor goes to Eric Dickerson.

    While he had a lot going on in the equipment category, I associate Dickerson more with the neck roll.

    But THEE mask was created for him due to his most distinctive piece of equipment… his goggles.
    Dickerson>Sanders

    imho….the break in the Padres SD draws the eye toward the P that forms at the intersection…

    This is interesting! is that P a thing? Obviously we’re all familiar with the SD logo but now l can’t unsee that P. Wild!

    This is the first time I’ve heard about the P ad well. Thanks for the information.

    I miss Pandemic Porch Cocktails, but I also appreciate that it ended deliberately instead of petering out.

    One of the things I’ve enjoyed about Paul’s various projects like gromm-it is that they ended just a tiny bit too soon (leaving readers wanting more) instead of too late (leaving readers tired or bored). Its a hard thing to do.

    Note that the Tigers coffee run apparently took them to both a Starbucks (clearly indicated in yesterday’s photos) and a Krispy Kreme (today’s photo).

    Coffee AND doughnuts. Mmmmmmm.

    Speaking as someone who has, at last count, about 160 caps, I applaud Craig Colby. In contrast to his situation, a compilation of the stories associated with my caps would make for an extraordinarily uninteresting book.

    Have skimmed through the book. My local library has a copy; he had made a book presentation at the library and donated a signed copy to the library. He had lived in Thunder Bay at some point (can see the purple and teal hat on left edge around the middle vertically – former Northern League team the Thunder Bay Whiskey Jacks).

    Whiskey Jack aka Grey Jay aka Canada Jay is the bird on the cap. Canadian Geographic magazine contest/poll had the bird chosen as Canada’s National bird a handful or two years ago:
    link

    Thanks for checking out the book Will. I adore those Whiskey Jack hats. I’m glad they’re back on the market in Thunder Bay.

    The cap story makes me wonder if it’s the same gentleman I met this summer. My wife had purchased us tickets to the West Michigan Whitecaps game for my 40th birthday. I was wearing a t-shirt with the Kenosha Kingfish logo on it. He walked up to me midway through the game and told me how he’d seen the Kingfish logo on my shirt but couldn’t figure out why he recognized it, and then went through his phone and he had the Kingfish lid in his own collection.

    That wasn’t me Tim but I applaud both his friendliness and his having his cap collection on his phone. Now I have to look up the Kenosha Kingfish hat.

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