March 17, 2004
Hats Off
Dave Metz at Talking Baseball is rating the caps of the major league teams. It's all very scientific, in a subjective sort of way. Part 1 brims with talk of the NL East and Central and part 2 examines the heads of the NL and AL West.
Posted by David Pinto at
08:13 AM
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Great article. I really enjoyed it...very clever. I always liked the Brewers and Pirates hats. I don't think the Braves should be rated that high though. Simple, yes...but I don't care for it.
I love the concept, but having read them, these posts make my brain hurt. He's not rating the caps (their caps, damnit!) worn by the teams, he's rating his favorite merch hats from Lids.com, most of which are stone-washed versions of game caps, some have inverted color schemes, and don't even get me started on the Angels cap he picked. All of which is well and good had he established that that was what he was doing, but he didn't. I'm not even sure he recognizes the fact himself.
To make things worse, throughout he refers to teams "wearing" caps that have never appeared on the field of play. Conjuring up Joe Morgan in connection with a black Reds cap with a red C is just the tip of the iceberg, discussing Molitor in connection with a yellow-crowned Brewers cap, or Willie Mays with a orange-crowned Giants cap is what lurks below the surface. Then he says things like "I don't know *anything* about the history of the Padres" (his emphasis).
I won't even get into the quality of the writing or the barrage of type-os.
I don't mean to attack a fellow blogger, but since attention has been called to this, I had to comment. Good idea, awful execution.
Of course having called some one else out on type-os (I only did so because there were *so many*) I notice my horrendous their/they're swap in my above comment. Of course . . .
Cliff - I agree with you in that the idea of rating one's favorite hats is a little less interesting that reviewing actual game-worn pieces. However, as a long-time (well, as long as you can get) reader of talkingbaseball, I would caution against judging Dave's writing based on this piece alone. I've been pretty impressed with the vast majority of his work so far even though the occasional awkward line squeezes through.
The idea was creative, interesting and fun. If you disagree with his execution, then write a counter piece!
Oh, and if you are going to insult someone's writing, it is only common courtesy to provide examples. I am also a writer, and I appreciate constructive criticism far more than offhand insults. I'm sure Dave would agree.
We have a comment about this on our Pirates blog. Click on my name to visit.
Many of our readers have had gripes with the hat posts - specifically with the nostalgia ratings. These gripes are understandable because I am in no way a baseball historian. Still, nostalgia is only assigned 5% of the overall hat rating. That's a very inconsequential amount in determining my overall rating for the cap.
More importantly, however, the hat post was not meant taken to be as seriously as some readers have taken it. I was simply grading my favorite hats that I found over at Lids. I wear hats frequently and wanted to see how I would rate hats on a slightly more rigorous scale. Clearly the scale was not meant to be taken as gospel - it's still just a subjective rating of caps. I'm sorry if I offended our readers with my comments.
Hey Rowdy, Not to start a fight or anything, but I hardly feel that your comment over on your site qualifies as a comment. You write, "Jackass" and then tell people to kick Dave's ass because he says that "nothing is remotely interesting about this hat." That's really good criticism. Dave's allowed to have an opinion on the Pirates' logo and if it conflicts with your own, you just have to learn to live with it. Telling people to go beat him up because of that isn't construct at all, and it pretty much violates the unwritten ethics of the baseball blog world. Instead of threatening Dave, why don't you give us your own rankings? Feel free to insult the Red Sox (Dave's favorite team) the Yankees (my favorite team) or any other team, if it makes you feel better. But you really shouldn't be threatening people with bodily harm.
Plus Dave's six feet six inches tall. No joke.
Tom, I didn't want to go quoting examples of poor writing/editing from Dave's piece because I didn't want to go to town on Dave, just express my opinion of his piece. I did contemplate doing a counter piece, but I thought that would be as much of a jerk move as knit-picking Dave's writing line-by-line on a third-party blog.
And Dave, I think the idea was great (like Tom says: creative, interesting and fun). I've got no gripe with the scale you created, or your right to rate these hats, just the execution. Really, I only commented because to temper the expectations of those reading this blog. That's why I commented here instead of on Talking Baseball (which may very well be an excellent site--I only meant to condemn the "hats" piece).