1999 Capital City Bombers Snapback

One of my favorite parts of this pseudo-weekly communiqué is to tie in some sort of significance to each week's featured hat with a place, thing, event or feeling that I'm experiencing. It's usually something as simple as trying to write about a hat from a city that's been featured in recent news or even one that I'm getting ready to visit. 

I was shocked—as I'm sure most other New Yorkers were—by the New York and New Jersey bombings and I was deeply saddened by Tuesday's fatal police shooting of Keith LaMont Scott. As I was trying to decide on this week's hat, I wanted to incorporate one with a connection to one of these recent tumultuous events as a way to honor those affected.

I don't have a Charlotte Knights hat (yet) and there wasn't a New York hat that I wanted to write about so I looked through my collection for one pertaining to either one of those cities. I was about to give up and write about another Asheville Tourists hat when I found a hat from a former farm club of the New York Mets which also happens to be about 90 miles south of Charlotte as the crow flies. 

While I was initially hesitant to write about a team called the "Bombers", the team's namesake is a reference to fighter planes that protect our country rather than weapons used by cowards to try to destroy it such as in this week's terrorist attack. The bombers that inspired this logo were the B-25B fighter planes of the famous Doolittle Raid of World War II.

 

Because I was admittedly ignorant on this famous air raid, I felt compelled to read more about it but I had to take a break in order to peruse tradingcarddb and comc in efforts to decipher what year this cap is from. I've written about the Bombers before but I only discused the logo they wore from 1994-1996 and then again from 2000-2004. 

The Skinny-C logo was only used from 1997-1999. On this card from 1997 the cap that Octavio Dotel is wearing has no New Era flag, nor do you see it in any of the cards featured in this Bombers group shot from 1998.

The New Era flag is not visible in any of the cards featured in this Bombers group shot from 1998.

The New Era sweatband tag features the logo the company used from 1997 through 1999 . Because the New Era flag was absent on the 1997 and 1998 caps, this confirms my assessment that this cap is from 1999. Also, the "One Size Fits All" is something I've never seen on a New Era snapback.

Maybe it's a stretch but when I see the "One Size Fits All" tag all I can think about is that I'll be seeing Metallica perform at this weekend's Global Citizen concert in Central Park. Seriously, all I see is a portmanteau of "One" and its album "...And Justice for All". This video is almost 20 years old and it's just as impactful as the first time I saw it. 

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