i'm not sure if it's the color combo, or what it stands for.  but hands down, there is one best cap in baseball, a classic.  a cap so good even the '77 pirates pillbox has to stand back and say "you're the one."  and we all know which one it is, right.  just think of the first time you saw it.  you got tingly, didn't you? 

i was in 5th grade when i did, in orange county at a time when fernando was on the news almost every night, or so it seemed to me as i watched the only segment of the news that made any sense to me. it wasn't just heads talking about the economy but clips of people doing things—albeit strange things that i couldn't really understand, done in weird uniforms with long sleeves under short ones and colored rubberband thingies keeping people's pantlegs down, with different colors spelling out names that i still had no grasp of, but that i was sure, just sure, if i could somehow get this sports thing i'd probably be able to talk to some kids in school during recess and make some friends.

being new to the US, i didn't know about baseball, really, or which teams where which.  but one day, in the middle of the school year, this kid jason moved into the district from somewhere called oakland and came to school wearing this home-town hat so proudly. i remember staring at the hat. in an era of maroon velour pullovers and beige OP corduroy shorts, it was almost transcendent.  the colors, green and gold, which are normally the also-rans next to blue and red, instead combine into an even stronger force than blue, red, or blue and red can muster.  so at the same time that everybody else is in dodger blue, or pete rose red, or california angel blue with red (remember them?), diluting the otherwise stalwart strength of these colors into a monochromatic incomplexity and creating its own crowd to fade into, along comes this against-the-current jolt of other colors, the crayons nobody fights over, if you will, and which, in combination, just blow away everything you expected two tones to do.  the green, it carries everything either blue or red would hope to: depth, strength, foundation, calmness like blue, energy like red.  but that's where the other primaries stop, even when contrasted to each other.  so here's the brilliance of the A's, or rather, of the A's gold.  it's bright, sharp, and clear; as soon as you were going to be lost in the forest of green, it brings you back to excitement, to freshness—it is lemon scent, it is sunlight, it is NOW. and then, that clearly superior tonal harmony is choreographed upon the cap itself—i mean, picture the hat without a gold button on top, totally and completely incorrect, right? but the button is gold, and it makes the gold brim not an oddity but integral, and this in turn strengthens the trim to play evenly against what would otherwise be an overabundance of green. then, a touch of clean in the white of the lettering, and let's not forget that initial A (for my name, obviously!).  and that apostrophe...  OMG, there's an apostrophe, nothing says USA! USA! USA! in the eyes of a non-english-speaker with an assimilation wish the way a good apo does (even if used to pluralize an adjective in initials...).  

yeah, it was a thrill the first time i saw jason's A's hat.

i ended up being friends with him fifth–eighth grades, with good and bad times both, of course.  i remember one drenchful spitting incident which actually began with a bit of gleaking—that wasn't so good.  and the night someone prank called me saying it was him and asking if i wanted to come spend the night leading to a bunch of surprised looks when i made my dad drive me over and i showed up carrying my sleeping bag on a tuesday night—thanks to forgiving parents, that one turned out fun.  but before that, way before that, maybe the first or second time i visited his house, i looked up from whatever we were playing and saw his hat hanging on the hook behind his door. i asked him, "what does your hat mean?" 

"it's the A's," he said.  "you know... baseball?"

"sure, sure," i said, "but what makes it so cool?"

Continue reading this post »

since i don't have an essay prepared about it am i allowed to fanpost it?  (actual question there.  please let me know etiquette.  i just have a feeling it'll get lost in the shots as it's already being ignored in the OT place i previously put it...) 

here's an article that i bet you'd enjoy hating on if you haven't yet.  get ready for a flashback to more Artful times.  my only thoughts are, "surprise!  the NYT wrote an article about the A's." 

and, "surprise!  the NYT wrote an article about the A's that didn't half-way become an article on the NYYs doing all the right things."

and, "did this have any play on the ever-debatable why did beane go with chavez over tejada a few years later?" 

maybe as a conversation starter, does anyone remember the events described, either the plays or the mood or the meeting?  and do you remember having any suspicions about them?

finally, not a thought, partly of a mantra, partly a song stuck in my head, "drum drum drum-drum-drum,  ME-ne-CHI-no!" (second chorus: "double-A hitting coach, ME-ne-CHI-no!")