This series is inspired by the must read book “All Caps, Stories That Justify an Outrageous Hat Collection” by Craig Colby. Craig wrote this book about the many caps he has and the stories behind it. Anyhow, this series will be about the caps I own and the stories behind them.
In this episode of “Personal Stories About Ballcaps,” we pay attention to the road cap of the Beloit Snappers.
The Beloit Snappers are no more. The club wanted to re-brand during the 2021 season, at the moment their new ballpark would be opened, but that is something MiLB does not allow. As a result, the name change came after the 2021 season, in November. They re-branded itself Beloit Sky Carp.
I got this road cap thanks to a giveaway by http://www.baseballmapper.com. For your information, Baseball Mapper is a website with ballparks throughout the United States. They put a pin on a virtual map, and when you click on it, you will get all kinds of information about that ballpark and the team that plays there. You could “subscribe” to the giveaway by liking the item at Instagram and Twitter, which I did. A few weeks later, I was contacted by Patrick Noote of Baseball Mapper. He told me I had won a cap. I could choose, so I opted for the road version, which I liked best.
Eventually, I got the message that Patrick had sent the cap. But after several weeks, I had not received the cap yet. At one point, I got this letter from the Belgian Mail Service about a parcel from the United States for which I had to pay import taxes. I thought: “Import taxes for a cap I won with a sweepstakes? Really?” I contacted the Belgian Mail Service and explained I had won this cap. I sent them screen shots of the discussions I had with Patrick about which cap I would pick after I was declared a winner.
But the Belgian Mail Service, called BPost, was stubborn as hell. Their argument was that Baseball Mapper was a shop, as they sold stickers… I told them they sold these stickers so they could fund their trips to various ballparks. I also asked them where they had seen Baseball Mapper sold caps, but no result.
Eventually, I dug up the posts of this giveaway posted by Baseball Mapper, and made screen shots of them. That was the game clincher for me, as BPost released the parcel and sent it to the Belgian customs. It took the Belgian customs another four weeks to check the parcel, but eventually, almost five months after I received the message that I had won this cap, it was delivered at my home.
I am very happy with this specimen, but it gave me a lot of annoyance because of BPosts stubbornness.
Once again, a big thank you goes out to Patrick Noote from Baseball Mapper for sending me this cap.
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