When Is a Hat More Than a Hat?

Finally, acknowledgement that other people are dealing with the same dilemma that faced me.

I really wanted a souvenir from my Diamond Club experience with the Nationals. And as I am by no means a baseball-jersey kind of person, the only real souvenir would pretty much have to be a ball cap (not that I wear a lot of those either, but I’m sure as hell more likely to do so than sport a jersey).

The problem? Not only are the caps red (at least the home caps), but they sport a big ol’ “W” right out there on the forehead. Makes sense, of course — that’s the team’s logo, designed to recall the old Senators’s logo — but picture me wearing a red W cap, and you begin to see the problem. Add to that the question of whether I should buy souvenir caps for the girls, and my dilemma is compounded.

I agonized about this pretty much the entire game. How could I possibly bring myself to buy (and presumably wear) something that even implied that I had anything but utter contempt for the scumbag occupying the oval office?

Sure, I could at least get a blue road cap. But I hadn’t attended a road game, and it seemed silly to have a “souvenir” (literally French for “to remember”) for an experience I hadn’t had. I could have gotten a DC logo cap or one of the other alternative-logo versions, but the same argument applied; they’re great if you’re a ball-cap-wearing guy, but if not, and you’re going to get just one souvenir cap, it should really be an authentic cap. And the players wear the red W.

Finally, in about the seventh inning, I thought screw it. I wasn’t about to let that cornpone son of a bitch coopt not only the color red, but the letter W as well. Hell, it was the first letter of my own first name. So I bought myself a cap — and two for the kids. Not in support of Duh-bya, but in open defiance.

He may have stolen my country, but he’s not getting my color palette and alphabet as well.