Early 1990's Yakima Bears

Welcome back to another week under quarantine, folks! This post takes our talents on a road trip out west so that we can discover all the rugged beauty that it has to offer. To mark this special occasion, I've got a Yakima Bears snapback from the early 1990's that I believe to be one of the more rare caps that the team wore during its existence.

The simplicity of the Yakima "Y" in the cap logo provides a sense of timelessness and even though the team is now-defunct, the design should be revived by the next team that makes its home in Yakima.

Besides the copious amount of schmutz on the sweatband, the tags here tell a very short story as to what year this cap was worn as these two specific tags are prevalent on many of the early 1990's snapbacks that I've seen before.

The missing MILB batterman embroidery is suggests to me that this cap is most likely from the early 1990's. I have found no evidence of the team wearing this yellow crowned cap in any of the cards and photos that I've seen, which likely means this variant was only worn briefly.

I've never been to Yakima but I know it is an ideal environment for young players to begin their professional careers as it was a charter member in the creation of the Northwest League (NWL) in 1955 up through 2012. Fortunately, it was only without a team for one year as the Yakima Valley Pippins began play in the West Coast League (WCL) in 2014.

Upon doing cursory research into the WCL, I learned the collegiate summer league features former NWL cities in Washington (Bellingham and Walla Walla) and Oregon (Portland and Bend) and I see a similar fun-loving spirit in the team names as I did from the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League in the Jamestown Tarp Skunks post from a few weeks back.

I'm thankful that I stumbled upon this relatively raggedy hat in the depths of my closet because it reminded me that I have a diverse mix of of vintage, retro and somewhat-current NWL hats that are related to this week's post which I feel the need to finally write about.

Without giving away too much, one interesting thing I can tell you about this forthcoming round of NWL hats is that a good number of the teams hail from cities whose names have American Indian origins, similarly to New York-Penn league alums like Oneonta and Utica. Even better is this common link also ties into last week's Sioux Falls Canaries hat!

I've deemed this week's Fresh Fitted Friday selection fine to be featured on the Trading Block so please don't hesitate to reach out if you want this or any other cap from that list and you have an interesting trade offer such as one of the hats on my Wish List.

As always, thanks for coming back to read about baseball hat geekery. I've got comments disabled here so if you'd like to discuss a trade or simply just chat about hats, please feel free to connect via the following social sites:

Instagram: @baseballmilquetoast

Twitter: @FittedFriday

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