Quote of the Day (Troy Patterson, on the Significance of Baseball Caps)

“Watch people fiddling with their baseball caps as they sit at a stoplight or on a bar stool, primping and preening in what must be the most socially acceptable form of self-grooming. No one begrudges their fussiness, because everyone appreciates the attempt to express a point of view. The cap presents studies of plasticity in action and of the individual effort to stake out a singular place on the roster, and the meaning of the logo is as mutable as any other aspect. To wear a New York Yankees cap in the United States is to show support for the team, maybe, or to invest in the hegemony of an imperial city. To wear one abroad — the Yankees model is by far the best-selling Major League Baseball cap in Europe and Asia — is to invest in an idealized America, a phenomenon not unlike pulling on contraband bluejeans in the old Soviet Union.”—Troy Patterson, “On Clothing: The Common Man’s Crown,” The New York Times Magazine, Apr. 5, 2015