Growing up I had about 30-40 hats all of which I loved for different reasons and would wear all the time. I remember my parents and my grandfather telling me that if I didn't stop wearing a hat it would make my hair fall out. I never believed them although looking back on it my grandfather always wore a fedora and was, in fact, bald so maybe he was on to something.
I imagine my love for hats was probably a result of loving baseball so much since it's the only sport in which the players wear hats (or caps in baseball terms) on the field. As a kid, I always wanted to look just like the players I idolized which lead to me constantly wearing wristbands for no apparent reason and dressing up as Keith Hernandez for Halloween. The only thing missing was the cap.
While I had the plastic "snap" Mets cap, I always wanted an official on-field, fitted one. Besides the fact that my head would not have fit in an official baseball cap growing up, I don't have any memory of them even being sold. In order to make up for this deficiency of head wear (tragic childhood, no?) as an adult I have owned close to 10 Mets fitted caps. Although they represent the same team, each one is a little different ranging from the different colors (blue, black, black/blue and the rare white), the 2000 World Series version, to the one with the American flag that came out after September 11th and most recently the Citi Field Inaugural Season version.
I'm not going to lie, the hat/cap thing might be the craziest part of my personality as is evident in the fact that I'm writing a blog about them. After owning a traditional blue Mets cap through the tragic 2007 and 2008 New York Mets, I decided that the cap was cursed and had a formal destruction ceremony with my friend Mike in which we tore it to pieces (the team suffered one of it's worst on the field years record wise since 2003 which just shows how much of a superstitious idiot I truly am.) I'll spend 10-15 minutes trying them on in order to find just the "right" one which is always a treat for my wife and at this point, I buy a new one every two years, hoping and (genuinely) thinking that this might be the one that brings my forlorn team a winning season but alas they never do. The past two years with the aforementioned all black Citi Field version brought more pain so at last night's game I bought another, this one the black and blue version (which I'm sure you already figured out was next in the cycle unless of course you didn't which would speak volumes about the proper attention you give the hats...none.)
There is an art to breaking in an official cap since they are usually very stiff and don't initially look that good on one's head as you can see in the photo above. I'll be wearing this one for the next two years and possibly longer in case this team begins to turn it around which already doesn't look promising 12 games into the season.
I'm glad that something as simple as a hat can still make me happy but more importantly I'm still happy that I have all of my hair.
